Killing of Charles Walton
[6] He was a widower who shared a small cottage, 15 Lower Quinton, with his 33-year-old niece Edith Isabel Walton, whom he had adopted thirty years previously upon the death of her mother.[8] That day Edith Walton was working as a Printer's Assembler at the Royal Society of Arts which had relocated to Lower Quinton for the duration of the War.[citation needed] Edith was overcome with grief and began to scream loudly: Beasley tried to pacify her and to make sure that she did not venture too close to the scene.[7]On 16 February Chief Inspector Robert Fabian and his partner, Detective Sergeant Albert Webb arrived to assist the investigation.PC Lomasney, the local policeman who knew Alfred and his wife, Lillian Elizabeth Potter, was asked to stay close to them to see what they might unwittingly reveal.Walton had also been hit over the head with his own walking stick which was found three-and-a-half yards from his body with blood and hair adhering to it.[7] Potter stated that on the day of the murder he had left the College Arms and gone across to a field known as Cacks Leys to see to some sheep and to feed some calves.Mrs Potter had displayed considerable annoyance at this revelation, stating that the police were bound to suspect him if his prints were on the murder weapon.[7] Again, in his initial crime report, Fabian recorded that, at the inquest on Charles Walton on 20 March, Potter had told the Coroner that he had seen someone in shirtsleeves in his field at 12.30 pm and that they were stationary.Edith claimed that Potter stated the following as they made their way to Hillground with Harry Beasley on the day of the murder; 'I have to do the milking on a Wednesday.[7] Fabian's investigations also revealed that Walton's best friend was seventy-two-year-old George Higgins of Fairview, Lower Quinton, although the pair had not seen each other since the previous Christmas.Higgins was employed by Mr Valender of Upper Quinton and at the time of the murder had been working in a barn just 300 yards from Walton.A detailed search of the entire area surrounding the murder scene was undertaken, with the help of the Royal Engineers using mine detectors, in an attempt to find Walton's pocket watch or some other clue, but to no avail.[8] Eventually Fabian and Webb returned to London while Detective Superintendent Alec Spooner continued to search for the murderer.The murder so fascinated Spooner that it is claimed he continued to return to the village long after the rest of the world had concluded that the perpetrator would never be found.[citation needed] The key for the police was establishing Potter's movements between 12 noon, when he parted company from Joseph Stanley at the College Arms, and 12.40 pm when Charles Batchelor said he saw him at The Firs.Despite Potter changing his story in various ways, Fabian concluded that there was "no real evidence to connect him with the murder itself, and no reasonable motive can be found for his committing it".[11] Ann Tennant was a resident of Long Compton, fifteen miles from Lower Quinton, and was murdered at the age of eighty.Although committed to trial for murder, he was found not guilty on the grounds of insanity and spent the rest of his life in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.The two reports that Fabian wrote on the case in 1945 and which are preserved on the police file make no mention of witchcraft, ritualistic killing, black dogs, natterjack toads or blood sacrifices.[citation needed] However, twenty-five years later he wrote the following:I advise anybody who is tempted at any time to venture into Black Magic, witchcraft, Shamanism – call it what you will – to remember Charles Walton and to think of his death, which was clearly the ghastly climax of a pagan rite.[10] Additionally, Detective Superintendent Alec Spooner, Head of Warwickshire C.I.D., is said to have drawn Fabian's attention to a 1929 book entitled Folklore, Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespeare Land, written by the Rev.This included the story of how, in 1885, a young plough boy named Charles Walton had met a phantom black dog on his way home from work on several nights in succession.[11] Amongst the theories and rumours that surrounded this case in subsequent years are the following: The claims that Ann was pinned to the ground with a pitchfork or slashed with a bill-hook are pure invention.However, his sisters Mary Ann and Martha Walton both married in 1891 and lived for some years thereafter, while Harriett – in reality Charles's half-sister – was still alive in 1901.Consequently, the story must have related to another Charles Walton unless Emma, his mother, gave birth to a fourth daughter between the April 1881 Census and the end of 1885.[15]Gerald B. Gardner stated in his book, The Meaning of Witchcraft: ... the Whispering Knights are not a circle; they are not Druidical, and they are about twelve miles away, as the crow flies, from Lower Quinton.