Allen Morgan jailed for hiring hitman to kill wife Carol

A husband who hired a hitman to murder his ex-wife while he was having an affair has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 22 years.

Carol Morgan, 36, was killed in a “frenzied attack” at the shop she ran with her husband Allen Morgan in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.

The hitman, who has never been caught, used an axe or machete to kill her in August 1981, before fleeing with money and cigarettes.

Passing a life sentence at Luton Crown Court, Judge Martin Spencer told Morgan he was a “wicked” person.

He said the 74-year-old was the only person who knew the identity of the hitman.

“This is the secret you have kept for the last 40 years. Justice has now caught up with you… but the murderer is still at large, if he is still alive.

“There is only one bad person in this courtroom and that is you, Mr. Morgan.”

Morgan was convicted of conspiracy to murder after a trial, but his current wife and then-lover, Margaret Morgan, 75, was found not guilty of the same offence.

The couple were living together in Brighton when police launched an investigation into Carol Morgan’s death in 2018.

Ms Morgan attended the sentencing, during which the judge stressed how Carol’s murder was “particularly brutal”.

She suffered between 10 and 15 blows during the attack at Mr and Mrs Morgan’s shop in Leighton Buzzard.

The judge said: “It appears to be something more than a murder committed in the course of a robbery… It was a crime whose primary motivation was the death of Carol.”

Morgan discovered his wife’s body in the storeroom as he returned from taking his two children, then aged 14 and 12, to a cinema to see two films in Luton.

The trip gave Morgan a “cast iron” alibi as a hitman paid to murder Carol and rob the store, the trial heard.

Mr Spencer said people were “surprised” when Morgan took his stepchildren to the cinema on the night Carol was murdered because he was “not particularly close” to the children.

He said: “The trip to the cinema was organised by you to give you an alibi for that evening when you knew Carol was going to be murdered,” the judge continued.

“It also ensured that the way was clear for the murderer to carry out his crime.”

Detectives initially believed Carol was the victim of a burglary gone wrong, but the 2018 investigation uncovered a new witness who proved crucial in catching Morgan.

Jane Bunting, 60, told the jury she met Morgan at the Dolphin pub in Linslade, Leighton Buzzard, a few months before the murder.

Ms Bunting, who was 17 at the time, said she was “appalled” and “horrified” when Morgan asked if her ex-boyfriend knew anyone capable of killing.

She said: “He would say, ‘I hate Carol,’ ‘I don’t want to be married to her,’ ‘I wish she would die,’ ‘Wouldn’t an accident be nice?’

Superintendent Carol Foster said Ms Bunting told officers she had been “waiting for you to come and see me for 40 years” when they knocked on her door.

By 1981, the Morgans were burdened with debt and Carol had drawn up a will leaving everything to her husband.

The store was also linked to a life insurance policy, the trial heard.

“The killer had inside information before he entered the premises,” prosecutor Pavlos Panayi KC told jurors.

“The obvious conclusion was that Allen Morgan had told the killer where he would find the money, which may well have been part of the payment for the murder.”

The court heard that about a year before his wife’s death, Morgan had begun an affair with Margaret Spooner, whom he later married.

Dean Morgan, Carol’s son, told the jury it came as a “real shock” in 2019 when police announced his in-laws had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in his mother’s murder.

The 57-year-old said he last spoke to his father-in-law in 2023, when he was charged.

“He told me it was a mix-up and I told him I had no idea what happened,” he continued.

“The argument got heated and he hung up on me. We haven’t spoken since.”

Speaking after Morgan’s conviction, Superintendent Carl Foster, who led the investigation into the cold case, said Carol had been killed in a “frenzied and sustained attack”.

A “shift in people’s allegiances” over the past four decades was key to the case, he said.

“Carol has been effectively erased from all memory, including that of her two children, who grew up without their mother, raised by the man responsible for her death,” he added.

He said police remained determined to find out who murdered Carol.