FOR 42 years, the vicious murder of mum-of-two Carol Morgan remained a chilling mystery.
On August 13, 1981, while her children were watching a film at the local cinema, Carol, 37, was bludgeoned to death in the storeroom of her corner shop in Linslade, Bedfordshire.
Her skull was shattered by 10 to 15 blows in an attack so savage that detectives would later describe it as “overkill.”
For four decades the mystery of her brutal murder remained unsolved, haunting the quiet community and baffling cops.
Now a new ITV documentary, The Real Unforgotten, follows investigators as they reopen the case and work to find out the truth behind Carol’s murder.
Detective Constable Denise Brown, who reviewed the shocking images of Carol’s body, described the gruesome scene in the documentary.
She said: “You can see huge lacerations. You can see the skull, and the second one shows the tissue that’s exposed as a result of the attack.
“What you don’t see is how Carol had a load of hair in her hand from where she had obviously put her hand to her head to protect her head.”
The brutality of the murder was undeniable. Carol’s finger was slashed in a defensive wound, her cheek was grotesquely damaged, and her skull was exposed.
While cops hunted an opportunist robber, the real mastermind stood right before detectives – her ‘grieving’ husband, Allen Morgan.
Morgan had a cast iron alibi, claiming he discovered his wife’s bloodied body after returning from the cinema with their children.
He immediately raised the alarm, reporting that £500 in cash and £120 worth of cigarettes were missing from the shop.
He played the role of the devastated husband, pleading with the killer’s friends and family to stop shielding them.
“Well, if he’s done it once, he’s going to do it again, and it was terrible,” he said in a TV interview at the time.
“You’ve got no idea what it was like when I walked in. No idea at all what she looked like. I just hope they don’t shield him too long or they don’t shield him at all.”
‘Worst shock’
Police initially believed the motive was robbery.
They focused their investigation on a man seen leaving the shop around 7pm, described as having “piggy-style nostrils.”
A composite image of the suspect was circulated widely and detectives pursued leads related to a dark green estate car seen nearby.
They questioned thousands of people and examined over 30,000 vehicles. But despite their efforts, the mysterious man and the car were never found.
Meanwhile, Carol’s family struggled to understand why someone would murder such a kind and gentle woman.
Her niece, Julie Walsh, said in the film: “Hearing about my auntie’s murder was the worst shock in the world. Everything just stops, and you think, ‘well, that can’t have happened.’
“Why would someone murder a defenceless, innocent woman working in her shop? It’s never made any sense to me.
“Why do something so grotesque… so brutal to anyone for a small reward as it seems?”
With the police at the time laser-focused on catching the man in the composite, other leads were disregarded.
Senior investigator Carl Foster, who opened the case in 2018 and eventually successfully cracked it says in the documentary: “This male was hugely significant to the original investigation because he was the main line of inquiry that was pursued.
“But in pursuing that, they were absolutely focused on catching the murderer at the expense of other lines of inquiry or other hypotheses.”
Secret lover
While police chased the wrong lead, Allen Morgan continued to play the grieving widower. But behind closed doors, he was hiding a dark secret.
He was having a passionate affair with Margaret Spooner, a married woman who was found in his bed the morning after Carol’s murder.
As detectives would later discover, Morgan and Margaret had been lovers for months, meeting every night in the days leading up to the murder.
Soon after the horrific discovery, Margaret’s friend, Sheila Forrest, remembered Morgan whispering to Margaret: “It won’t be long now, darling… I’m sorry I’ve had to tell them all about us.”
In a witness statement in 1981, she told cops: “His grief seemed unreal… I was feeling physically sick and frightened at Morgan’s words to Margaret.”
Margaret’s husband came forward to give police a witness statement, telling them: “I do anticipate that now that Mrs Morgan has died, my wife and Allen will live together.”
That’s exactly what happened – six weeks after Carol’s death, Margaret moved into the family home, living with Morgan and Carol’s children.
Rumours swirled in the community, forcing Morgan to sell the shop and move away. He later admitted: “There are quite a few other people who won’t shop here because they are afraid to be caught up in the gossip.”
But it wasn’t just the affair that raised eyebrows. Investigators discovered the couple’s finances were in ruins, with the shop they co-owned failing and cheques bouncing.
Chillingly, there was also an insurance policy that would pay out upon Carol’s death.
Lies and inconsistencies
When Carl took charge of the case, he quickly realised the original investigation had been flawed and forensic evidence had been destroyed.
Cracking the case was going to be a daunting task.
Carl and his team revisited over 500 witness statements and 6,000 documents.
Armed with ghastly pictures from the scene, Carl and his team worked tirelessly with forensic experts and medical teams to get a better sense of how and why Carol was killed.
Investigators came to the conclusion that they had to look more closely at Morgan.
A few months after Carol’s death, Morgan granted an interview in the media where he claimed that his marriage was “as good as over”.
He also said he was not going to “mourn forever” and showed no remorse for moving on too soon with Margaret.
Hitting back in the film, Carl says: “If you cared one jot about Carol, then surely any normal human being under those circumstances would not be flaunting their life in that way and disrespecting Carol’s memory quite as openly as Allen seemed to.”
In November 2019, 38 years after Carol’s murder, Carl and his team arrested Allen, then aged 69 and Margaret, 70 at the time.
It was the first time that an arrest had ever been made in the puzzling case.
Police launched another appeal for information and went around speaking to neighbours again, in the hopes of gathering new information.
During questioning, police noted several inconsistencies and lies in the pair’s accounts of what happened.
One of the most significant was when he told police that there was no machete in his shop.
From interviews, police had already established that there was and several people had seen Morgan using one.
Carl believes that was the item that was used to murder Carol. Allen also lied about his financial situation with Carol, giving police more reason to suspect that he was involved in her murder.
During questioning, it was revealed that Allen had a previous conviction for insurance fraud.
Before Carol, he was previously in a volatile marriage with a woman called Sandra, who he had two kids with.
He became violent towards her and even punched her in the stomach when she told him she was pregnant, which may have contributed to the loss of one of their twins.
Sandra gave a statement in 1981 detailing a history of brutal domestic violence. His own kids also revealed disturbing details of brutal punishments and a history of physical abuse.
After the initial interviews, the couple were released on bail pending further investigations as police did not have enough evidence to charge them.
Bombshell evidence
Just as the investigation stalled and frustration began to set in, a bombshell witness came forward.
In 1981, Jane Bunting was a wayward child who had been expelled from, school. Margaret was then assigned as her tutor.
After developing a close relationship, Jane was invited to a pub to meet up with Margaret and Morgan three months before the murder.
During their conversation, the couple discussed various ways Carol could die, including in a car accident.
The conversation left Jane stunned but Margaret tried to assure her it was just a joke.
After Carol was killed, Margaret warned the 17-year-old not to tell anyone about the discussion at the pub. Jane’s incredible testimony was the smoking gun detectives desperately needed.
Armed with this, they once again arrested Morgan and Margaret and brought them into the Kempston Police Station for questioning.
During the interrogations, they answered “no comment” to every question.
Although the Crown Prosecution Service felt they had a significant amount of evidence on the couple, they wanted to make sure they could prove their guilt without a reasonable doubt.
The couple was released for a second time. During their trips to and from the station, cops secretly recorded their conversations, including one instance when Morgan told Margaret: “I don’t want to say anything cos they might have…” – stopping when he realised he might incriminate himself.
Eventually, the decision was made to charge the pair for hiring a hitman to murder Carol.
Shan Saunders, from the CPS, whose decision it was to charge the pair said in the documentary: “If you take out the robbery hypothesis and look at it, who else had a motive to kill her?”
In April 2024, the couple’s trial began at the Luton Crown Court. Dean Morgan, Carol’s son, bravely gave testimony while Jane Bunting’s evidence revealed the cold-hearted plot to kill Carol.
In June 2024, the jury reached a decision and found Morgan guilty of conspiracy to murder. However, Margaret was acquitted of the charge.
On 29th July, Allen was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 22 years.
Sentencing, Mr Justice Spencer told Morgan he was a “wicked” person.
But while Allen Morgan plotted the murder, the accomplice who carried out the horrific attack has never been found.
The Real Unforgotten airs on 18th February at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX
