UPDATED: Husband jailed for conspiring to kill shopkeeper Carol Morgan

Updated to reflect that Allen Morgan was sentenced on 29 July to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 years for conspiring to murder his wife Carol Morgan in 1981.

In response to the sentencing, Senior Crown Prosecutor Shan Saunders for the Crown Prosecution Service said:

"Our thoughts today are with Carol’s family and friends who have finally seen justice served for her murder over forty years ago.

"Having lived a lie for decades, Allen Morgan will now almost certainly spend the rest of his life in prison for his role in Carol’s murder.

"This has been a complex and unusual case, not least because it dates back over 40 years. Modern day lines of enquiry, including forensic analysis, CCTV and phone data were not available then, so the case we built against Allen Morgan relied primarily on the accounts of witnesses.

"Their testimonies, including that of a new witness who stated that Morgan had asked her whether she knew someone who would kill his wife, provided the evidence to convince a jury that he had conspired to murder her.

“This case clearly demonstrates that the police can and will investigate crimes and the Crown Prosecution Service will prosecute offences, however long ago they took place."

News release issued at time of Allen Morgan’s conviction – 19 June 2024
The husband of a shopkeeper who was killed over forty years ago has been convicted of conspiring to murder her.

Allen Morgan, 74, was found guilty of plotting to kill Carol Morgan whose body was found in her Linslade store in Bedfordshire in 1981. Carol had been subjected to a violent attack.

At the time of Carol’s death, there was not enough evidence to charge anyone in connection with the case. Allen had an alibi for the evening she died and was not considered a suspect for her murder.

However, when a police cold case team reviewed the unsolved murder in 2018, developments in the case enabled the Crown Prosecution Service to charge him with conspiring to murder her.

The Crown Prosecution Service’s case was that Allen Morgan arranged and paid for Carol to be killed.

During the trial, the court heard how Allen, who was having an affair at the time, would not only be free to set up a new life with his lover if Carol died, but he would also benefit financially from her death.

Crucially, one witness who gave evidence recounted a conversation that Allen had with her about getting rid of Carol, asking her if she knew anyone they could hire to kill her.

Lawyer Shan Saunders, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “For decades, Allen Morgan hid the truth about how Carol died.

“However, when an investigation into her unsolved murder was reopened almost forty years later, a thorough review of the evidence gathered by the original enquiry team together with new evidence from a witness was sufficient to link him to Carol’s death, enabling us to charge him with conspiring to murder her.

“With no CCTV or forensics available, we relied almost exclusively on testimonies from dozens of witnesses during the trial. The strength of their evidence was enough for us to prove that Morgan had plotted to kill Carol, and for the jury to subsequently convict him.”

Senior Investigating Officer Detective Superintendent Carl Foster of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, who continued to lead the investigation despite retiring before it reached trial, said: “Carol was killed in a frenzied and sustained attack, suffering horrific injuries which cruelly cut short her life.

“Over the last four decades methods of gathering evidence have changed and improved, but the key in this case has been a change in people’s allegiances and loyalties. As a result, the re-investigation relied on good old-fashioned detective work, retracing the evidence obtained in 1981 and revisiting numerous witnesses.

“Allen Morgan has had more than 40 years of freedom that Carol will never have. He has today finally faced justice for the role he played in her murder.”