AN EVIL love triangle killer’s seemingly perfect alibi fell apart in moments as detectives cracked an impossible 40-year-old cold case.
Callous Allen Morgan hired a hitman to savagely butcher his wife, Carol, so he could pocket her fortune and start a new life with his mistress.
The twisted plot was spawned from Allen’s sordid affair and insatiable greed.
It came into fruition on August 13 1981, when Carol, 34, was brutally attacked while working in their shop.
Allen, now 74, had taken his wife’s two children from a previous marriage to the cinema at the time, a near concrete alibi that kept him free from justice for 43 years.
After his wife was heinously hacked to death, the vile monster lived off her life insurance with Margaret, who has since been cleared of all charges, as the pair fled to Yorkshire and started a new life.
The cold case was re-opened in 2018 by Senior Investigating Officer Detective Superintendent, Carl Foster, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit.
He noticed some crucial holes in the original files, and embarked on the six-year battle to put ‘Love Triangle Killer’ behind bars.
Now retired, Mr Foster told The Sun: “I made the decision to reopen it in 2018. I was head of the cold case unit and this case came up for review.
“When I read it I was just struck by how neither Allen Morgan, nor Margaret had ever been in the position where they were treated as suspects, or arrested or interviewed.
“The main reason for that was because Allen Morgan had manufactured this concrete alibi, where he wasn’t around that evening, he’d gone to the cinema with Carol’s children.
“The investigation was rightly focused on trying to identify who this murderer was, there was a lot of panic in the local community about such a horrific murder happening on their doorstep.”
The former detective explained how the charge of conspiracy to murder was not favoured by prosecuting authorities at the time.
“I read the review and thought there are too many unanswered questions, there are too many things that need to be put to Allen and Margaret as suspects.”
He knew there was “very, very strong circumstantial evidence” but his team would have to use some “old fashioned detective work” because of destroyed forensic evidence.
“Due to a massive mistake in Bedfordshire police some of the original exhibits had been destroyed, so the forensic opportunities were to say limited was an understatement,” Mr Foster continued.
“I come from an era of you would detect things through, without being cliche, old fashioned detective work.
“We even went back to the shop and found that all of the shelving in there in 2019 was the same shelving that had been in there in 1981,” he continued.
“We stripped the store room and went back over it all, we didn’t get anything but we tried to increase our chances.”
Detectives also started to construct their case on witness testimony, scouring through old statements and re-visiting those who were still alive to tell their story.
“The fascinating thing was pretty much all of the witnesses could remember what happened in detail, and gave us the same accounts as 40 years earlier. People still had those events very much in their psyche.”
The pivotal turning point came when officers re-interviewed an original witness called Jane Bunting.
Jane had been 17-years-old at the time of Carol’s cruel murder and Mr Foster described her as a teen who would have “by police standards be considered vulnerable”.
“As a result of that the local authority asked Margaret to tutor her, but in Jane’s own words, she credited Margaret to saving her life and changing the direction,” said the former detective.
“She was remarkably loyal to Margaret, and her relationship with the police was not great, she wasn’t a criminal, just a troubled child.
Allen Morgan, 73, and Margaret Morgan, 75, appeared at Luton Crown Court in April this year accused of conspiring together to kill Carol Morgan.
The 36-year-old was found hacked to death in the shop she ran with her husband in Linslade, Bedfordshire, in August 1981.
Allen and Margaret Morgan had been in a “passionate, but forbidden and adulterous love affair” at the time, it was said.
Jurors were told the couple, who are now married, cooked up a plan with an unknown killer to get Carol out of their way.
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.
“Had she not been murdered and had she lived these past 43 years, she would be 80 years old.
“She was killed on the evening of 13 August 1981 in a brutal attack by someone who has never been identified.
“That someone used an axe or heavy knife or machete to hack into her body and skull, causing horrifying injuries from which she died.”
Luton Crown Court was told Allen Morgan embarked on the affair with Margaret a year before the killing.
He couldn’t get a divorce from Carol because she brought the money into the marriage and there were “spiralling debts”, it was said.
On the day she died, Allen Morgan took Carol’s two children from a previous marriage to the cinema in Luton.
The court heard this was unusual as he “didn’t have a strong relationship with his stepchildren” and had never before taken them out without their mum.
The trio had not been due back until 11pm – leaving Carol alone in the shop, jurors were told.
After Carol closed the shop, an attacker or attackers killed her inside the store room at around 7pm.
Allen Morgan claimed he returned home to find his wife dead and said £400 cash had been taken from a desk and £35 from the till, along with 1,400 cigarettes.
Police found “no sign of any forced entry” and the family dog had been shut into a bedroom, it was said.
The widower was quickly ruled out as the murderer because of his alibi and he denied playing any part in the horror.
After his wife was killed, Margaret Morgan left her husband and children to move in with Allen Morgan.
The couple stayed married ever since.
The trial at Luton Crown Court lasted nine weeks.
A jury found Margaret Morgan not guilty of conspiracy to murder.
Allen Morgan was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 years.
“She told us she thought that even if she’d told police what she knew at the time, they wouldn’t believe her.”
Jane soon left the area but continued to research whether the case had been solved.
“When we knocked on her door, her response was ‘I’ve been waiting 40 years for you to come here’.”
The key witness opened up about a conversation she had with Allen and Margaret at The Dolphin pub shortly before the attack.
“Allen and Margaret proceeded to have a conversation where Allen made it clear he wanted to get rid of Carole,” explained Mr Foster.
“He knew Jane was seeing a boy and asked if he knew anyone who could do it for them.
“The background is, Jane had been having a relationship with a married man and teenage jealousy made her say ‘oh I wish his wife was dead’, and Allen said ‘why don’t we do each other a favour, I will get rid of her for you and you can help me get rid of Carol’, or something along those lines.
“The conversation became so detailed and obvious it wasn’t a joke, she felt uncomfortable and walked out of the pub.
“The police had never been aware of that piece of evidence until we saw her in 2021.
“This was the vital piece of direct evidence that had been missing the whole time.”
Cops arrested Allen and Margaret in 2021 but the pairs’ reaction baffled officers.
My Foster said: “What amazed me was 38 years after the murder, we arrest them and neither of them say anything, you would expect someone who’s innocent to react with horror.
“They just shrugged their shoulders almost. One of the arresting officers messaged me this morning and said ‘that day I arrested him and there wasn’t a flicker of emotion in his eyes or responses, I knew he had done it’.
“It was just bizarre. We wanted to hear what they said to each other when they were alone, the first thing they said was ‘shhh shhh, they might be listening’.
“Straight away when I heard their initial responses, I knew we had got the right people.”
The former detective gave an insight into the ‘Love Triangle Killer’s’ twisted psyche after dealing with the chilling criminal.
“My impression of Allen is that he’s lived that lie for such a long time he’s convinced himself its the truth,” said Mr Foster.
“He is a really, really arrogant man, everyone you speak to who has met him at any point in his life has said he’s not a nice person.
“Allen always wanted to make the whole thing about him. He did a TV interview and we played it in evidence and he’s asked how the death of his wife has affected him.
“He says ‘ well I’ve had to shut the shop, I’ve lost stock, I’ve lost money, sold the business at a loss and moved away’, not once does he say ‘I’m absolutely devastated about my wife being killed in such horrific circumstances’.
“Even the probation pre-sentence report, the officer who wrote that he’s shown no remorse and shown more concern about the impact going to prison is going to have on him – rather than the impact his crime has had on other people like Carol’s children.
“I don’t think he ever will, he will just revel in maintaining that little bit of control.”
Speaking about Margaret, Mr Foster added: “It’s really interesting and difficult to work out, is she potentially a domestic abuse victim? Is she manipulated and controlled? Allen has a history of domestic abuse with his first wife.
“But when we asked her, she said she was not a victim.
“She most definitely is far more intelligent than Allen, so is she as narcissistic as him but because she’s more intelligent, the driving force behind it? The jury found her not guilty and we have to accept that verdict. But that one is still open to debate.”
Despite knowing they had snared the person responsible for orchestrating Carol’s murder, Mr Foster’s team had a tough slog ahead of them to lock him up.
Due to the nature of the case being largely circumstantial, the Crown Prosecution Service told cops they would have to be “trial ready” before charges could be made.
It took a dedicated three-man task force 18-months working full-time to pour through 7,000 documents.
Mr Foster recalled the race against time, as detectives feared either Allen or Margaret could die before the case even got to court.
Finally, on Monday July 29, Allen Morgan, of Stanstead Crescent, Brighton, was sentenced to life imprisonment after a gruelling nine-week trial at Luton Crown Court.
He will have to serve a minimum of 22 years for the hatching the evil plan.
The jury found Margaret Morgan not guilty of conspiracy to murder.
“I feel elated, I’m pleased we were able to solve the case and get some justice for carol and her family,” said Mr Foster.
“And also for my team, we’ve been on this pretty much full time for six years, we faced some real challenges and tests of resilience and at the end of the day the tenacity paid off.
“There were times I asked myself if it could be solved, being a Senior Investigating Officer is a lonely place sometimes, but I’d look over everything again and think ‘no we’ve definitely got the right person’.
“It just kept us soldering on.”
The former detective said despite his joy, the verdict was also bitter sweet for Carol’s children, who were 12 and 14-years-old at the time of her murder.
“Allen and Margaret brought Carol’s children up since day one, the kids have to come to terms with this,” he said.
“The person they called dad is responsible for murdering their biological mother.
He added: “A clause in one of the life policies that said Allen would only inherit Carol’s estate if he brought her children up, so that’s what happened.
“He isolated them away from their extended maternal side and then never had contact with their biological father, no paternal grandparents and they moved up to Yorkshire.
“So I feel for them and the journey they have to go through, that must be terrible.”
