The chilling true story of ‘the pitchfork murder’… one of Britain’s most gruesome unsolved crimes
Killed on Valentine's Day in 1945, Charles Walton came to a bloody end at a farm in Lower Quinton, the Warwickshire village where he lived
ONE of Britain's oldest unsolved murders makes for a brutal story, complete with gore, suspicion and even allegations of witchcraft.
Killed on Valentine's Day in 1945, Charles Walton came to a bloody end at a farm in Lower Quinton, the Warwickshire village where he lived.
The 74-year-old farm labourer was known to be a slightly unusual character, although he was well liked in the village, where he lived with his niece Edie.
On February 14 1945, he was trimming hedges on the farm where he worked, having been witnessed walking to work that morning carrying a pitchfork and a slash hook - used for cutting branches.
But Charles never returned home that day.
The elderly villager had met a brutal end, with his hook embedded in his throat and his body pinned to the ground by his own pitchfork.
A large cross was also carved into his chest, leading villagers to suspect that witchcraft was somehow involved in the savage killing.
Meon Hill, where Charles' body was found, had been the subject of strange tales for centuries, with reports of huge black dogs stalking the supposedly haunted hill.
During the investigation, an officer came across a book titled The book, Folklore, Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespeareland.
The tome, penned by J. Harvey Bloom in 1929, featured a passage which mentioned the death of a Charles Walton in 1885, after seeing a foreboding ghost.
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Rumours soon spread that the recently-killed Charles Walton had somehow been connected to the man of the same name, who died a supernatural death 60 years previously.
Locals were so concerned by the evil events that Scotland Yard sent down an inspector, Robert Fabian, to work out why Charles had faced such a gory end.
Charles' employer, Alfred John Potter, was a prime suspect in the following investigation, although nobody could work out why he would perform such a ritualistic killing.
As the investigations continued, residents reportedly came across a black dog hanged by Meon Hill, and the theory was circulated that Charles had been practising witchcraft.
This led to speculation that a villager had conducted the ritual killing in order to cleanse the village of evil.
However, there was no way of pinning the gory crime on anyone, and the killing remains one of the country's most notorious unsolved murders to this day.