43 years on, husband and his mistress are accused of hiring a machete hitman to murder his wife
‘Found her in a pool of blood’
A SHOPKEEPER was murdered with an axe or machete in a plot allegedly hatched by her husband and his lover so they could continue their affair, a court heard yesterday. Carol Morgan, 36, was killed in her corner shop 43 years ago after her husband Allen took her two children to the cinema.
At the time, he was involved in a ‘passionate but forbidden and adulterous affair’ with married Margaret Spooner.
The prosecution say the pair hired a killer to strike at Morgan’s Food Fayre in Linslade, Bedfordshire, after realising divorcing their spouses would leave them in financial difficulties.
The defendants later married and have been together ever since.
Opening the case, prosecutor Pavlos Panayi
KC said: ‘ The murder of
Carol Morgan was no random attack. It was planned and paid for by the two defendants in the dock.’
Allen Morgan, now 73, who walks with a stick, and Ms Spooner, 75, who later married Morgan and used a hearing loop in court, both deny conspiracy to murder.
The defendants, who live in Brighton, are said to have begun their affair 14 months before Mrs Morgan was killed on August 13, 1981.
Allen met his lover on his grocery delivery rounds and they had sex three times a week while her husband, Michael, was at work, the court heard.
They allegedly wanted to move in together but the Morgans had debts and Carol had ‘ brought the money in’ from her share of the sale of the marital home after her first marriage ended, meaning Allen would not be able to support them.
‘That problem was solved by the death of Carol Morgan,’ Mr Panayi said.
Carol and Allen Morgan took out a £6,000 loan – now worth £22,000 – towards the purchase of the business.
The prosecution said the shop was struggling financially and the loan was covered by a policy that meant it would be paid off if either of them died. When Mrs Morgan was killed, £4,892 remained outstanding.
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, Mr Panayi said. They arrived home after the double bill and found her in a pool of blood.
Just over £400 in cash and 1,400 cigarettes had been taken, suggesting a burglary, Luton Crown Court heard.
The jury was told that they will also hear from a witness, Jane Bunting, who was 17 when she went to a pub with the defendants months before the murder.
They met her boyfriend, ‘a known criminal called Danny Mayhew’, and the pair ‘asked him if he knew anyone who could kill Carol’.
‘Jane’s reaction was shock. She was appalled and left the pub,’ Mr Panayi said. ‘She kept silent for the past 40 years. But she came forward in 2021 when she heard there was a reinvestigation.
‘The prosecution say while Allen Morgan did most of the talking, the fact Margaret Morgan was there meant she was part of the plan.’ During the meeting with Ms Bunting, the couple discussed ‘ ridding themselves’ of Carol with a fatal dose of insulin or tampering with the brakes on the family car, jurors were told.
Carol was due to see a marriage counsellor five days after she was killed in a bid to ‘ save her marriage’ and allegedly told friends she ‘hoped [Allen] had ended his affair with Margaret’.
But the court was told he was only pretending.
Mr Panayi said: ‘They gave the false impression to their spouses that they had put the affair behind them.’
The court was told that witnesses reported seeing a man near the shop around the time of the murder.
But Mr Panayi said: ‘ We don’t need to establish who that was . . .the defendants not only had every reason to want to kill Carol Morgan but took steps to ensure that she was.’ The trial continues.