Charles Walton (murder victim)

Charles Walton (12 May 1870 - 14 February 1945), a native of Lower Quinton in Warwickshire, England, was found murdered on the night of 14 February 1945 at a farm known as The Firs, situated on the slopes of Meon Hill. Chief Inspector Robert Fabian was asked to lead the investigation into Walton's death but failed to gather sufficient evidence to charge anyone with his murder. The case has earned considerable notoriety because some believe Walton was killed as a blood sacrifice or as part of a witchcraft ceremony or, indeed, because he was suspected of being a witch himself. However, it is known that the chief suspect was the manager of The Firs, a man named Alfred John Potter, for whom Walton was working on the day he died. It is the oldest unsolved murder on the Warwickshire Constabulary records.

Charles Walton was a 74-year-old agricultural worker who had lived in and around Lower Quinton all his life. He was a widower who shared a small cottage, known as 15 Lower Quinton, with his thirty-three-year-old niece, Edith Isabel Walton, whom he had adopted thirty years previously upon the death of her mother. He was something of a loner who, as a young man, had earned a reputation as a trainer of horses. It is said that he did not socialise to any great extent with his neighbours but that he was far from being disliked.

On 14 February 1945 he left home with a pitchfork and a slash hook – a double-edged pruning implement with a sharpened straight edge on one side and concave cutting edge on the other. He was seen by two witnesses to have passed through the churchyard between 9 am and 9.30 am. Charles walked with a stick because of his rheumatic joints. However, he sought casual farm work wherever he could find it and, for the previous nine months, had been working for a local farmer, Alfred Potter, whose farm was known as The Firs. On this particular day, he was slashing hedges in a field known as Hillground on the slopes of Meon Hill.

Edith Walton, meanwhile, 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. Charles was expected to be home by 4 pm. Edith returned home at about 6 pm and was worried to find that Charles was not there. His solitary nature and regular habits gave her no solace that he might be in the local pub or visiting a friend.

Edith went to see her neighbour, an agricultural worker by the name of Harry Beasley who lived at 16 Lower Quinton. Together they made their way to The Firs to alert Alfred Potter. Potter claimed to have last seen Charles earlier in the day, slashing hedges in Hillground. The three of them set out in the direction of the spot where Charles had last been seen and eventually found his body near a hedgerow.

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