by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
On a cold February evening in 1945 the body of 74-year-old Charles Walton was found in a field of the Firs farm, in which he had been working earlier that same day. He was considered a recluse, and no one who lived in the Warwickshire hamlet could understand who would want to kill him, much less mutilate him.
Charles Walton was known to be a quiet man and a loner, who shared a thatch-roofed cottage opposite the village church with his niece in the hamlet of Lower Quinton. Despite suffering from rheumatism and using two walking sticks, he worked on and off doing odd jobs and lived off his small pension. His reputation as an honest, hardworking farm laborer left the authorities puzzled as to who would want to kill him, especially in such a brutal manner.
On February 14, he left early in the morning to continue trimming hedges in a field called Hillground. That was the last time his niece saw him alive. A sickle-like farm tool, known as a slash or bill hook was used to cut his throat three times, with wounds so deep he was almost decapitated. His skull was split, three ribs were broken, and his body bore evidence of a terrific beating. Nearby lay one of his walking sticks with hair and blood on it. The ultimate mutilation was a pitchfork thrust through the lower part of the face, which pinned the body to the ground. The handle was wedged under the hedge. The head had been tilted backward in order to drain the blood from the severed arteries — the hook still buried deep in his neck. His money belt was loose, his clothing unbuttoned and his braces undone and broken. The only thing missing from Charles Walton belongings, was a cheap, metal pocket watch, which he was known to carry.
Some accounts further claimed that a crude cross-shaped symbol had also been carved into his chest, however the autopsy report did not reflect this.
This rumor could have come about since it was believed that carving a cross into a witch would nullify their power. Such was the case that was dubbed "The Witchery Case." Fifteen miles from Lower Quinton was the village of Long Compton. In September, 1875 Ann Tenant, a 79-year-old woman, the wife of a pig dealer was coming home after visiting the village baker. James Hayward a farmer, was returning home with his father-in-law when he ran up to her, and with a pitchfork stabbed her several times in both legs and then hit her about the head with the handle of the fork. A neighbor came and seized Hayward, others took the woman to the house of her daughter where she died shortly afterwards. On being taken into custody he said to the constable, "I hope she's dead, she was an old witch; there are fifteen more in the village I'll serve the same; I mean to kill them all. A few days ago I was three hours in a beanfield, and could not work, as they had witched me." He was charged with manslaughter, but found to be criminally insane and spent the rest of his life at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Hayward might have been crazy, but he was expressing deeply held beliefs from those who had lived in the area for generations.
Lower Quinton where Walton lived was a rural village with a population of only a few hundred that dated back to the 16th century. Thatched-roofed cottages surrounded a church and local pub, and further out were a few farms. In a place where everyone knew their neighbors, and a stranger would have been noted, it was unusual indeed that there were no suspects or leads in the crime.
Local authorities asked Scotland Yard for help. Their message read that the "murder was either committed by a madman or one of the Italian prisoners who are in a camp nearby". Chief Inspector Robert Fabian, a well-known detective and his partner Albert Webb were tasked with finding the killer. They would go on to interview and inspect a nearby POW camp that held Italians who were allowed to come and go as they pleased, but nothing was found to connect anyone to the murder. They looked hard at Alfred Potter, who owned the land where the murder had taken place, and was the last person to have seen Walton alive. There was also a question if he owed Walton money, but he was soon cleared. It's believed that Fabian considered him the strongest suspect at the end of his investigation. The detectives investigated the state of Walton's finances, and there was an irregularity that was never explained. Walton's wife left him a sum of £297 when she died in 1927. This was quite a considerable amount for those years. He was known to have placed it in a building society, but during the murder investigation the balance was only £2 11s 9d. Known as a frugal man he spent no more than £2 per week. About 60 shillings was found in his house, but the remainder was never accounted for. The detectives were surprised that not a single person volunteered any useful information. The pair interviewed just about every one of the 500 or so residents of Lower Quinton, and ended up with more questions than answers. Fabian noted: There were lowered eyes, reluctance to speak except for talk of bad crops – a heifer that died in a ditch, but what had that to do with Charles Walton? Nobody would say.
The detectives were also puzzled when none of the villagers expressed fear that they might be the next victim of a madman.
A telling encounter was when an elderly villager shouted at the detectives before slamming the door in their face: "He's been dead and buried a month now, what are you worrying about?" Of one thing the detectives were certain, the village of Lower Quinton was keeping a formidable secret, and there was only one way to learn the truth, and that was to look into Charles Walton's life. In order to understand the customs of the region, Fabian read the Folk Lore, Old Customs and Superstition's in Shakespeare Land (1929) authored by J. Harvey Bloom, a local clergyman. What Fabian found was a description of folk stories and superstitions with a dark flavor that permeated the area. It seemed that there was a long history of witchcraft in the county, which might have been more subtle, but which had deep roots in the community. The detective could not help but see the ties between the ritualistic overtones of the crime, and the beliefs that still thrived in the area. Was this the conspiracy that kept the community evasive about the murder? At first blush it seemed far-fetched, but other details pointed that there was more truth to the theory than originally thought.
Charles Walton was originally described as a solitary and peculiar man, but it seemed he had another, darker reputation. It was said he possessed certain powers such as second sight, and the ability to communicate with spirits.
Since his youth he was known in modern parlance as a "horse whisperer" who could tame horses with his hand or eyes. It was said he could also communicate with birds, and dogs as well. According to one witness account: Walton had been seen on many occasions imitating the songs of the nightingale and chirping to other species of bird. He openly professed to be conversant in the Aeolian language of his feathered friends, for they seemed to obey his requests to refrain from eating the seeds sown in the fields of his little plot.
Mention of Charles Walton was documented in J. Harvey Bloom's book in which he wrote: "a plough lad named Charles Walton [who] met a black dog on his way home nine times in successive evenings. On the ninth encounter a headless lady rustled past him in a silk dress, and on the next day he heard of his sister's death."
According to the neighbors this encounter "stained Walton's soul" as documented by Bloom. Already seen as a gifted child, he was imbued with a darker cast such as having the "evil eye" and being able to curse others. There were those who whispered he was a witch. Strangely after the murder, when Walton's home was searched his garden was full of large Natterjack toads. Rumors were quick to spread that he was breeding them for use in occult practices, since toads were known to be a witch's familiar, and a tool in cursing. Isobel Gowdie, an illiterate cottar's wife, and a self-proclaimed Scottish witch was tried in 1662. She confessed to fastening miniatures plows to toads and loosing them in the local fields in order to sterilize the ground. This confession was produced without the use of torture. Prior to Charles Walton's death the crop season was dreary, and Lower Quinton was badly affected, leaving some to blame the old man for blighting the harvest. One of Walton's former employers described what the old man had done to blight a field: Old Charlie, used to catch a toad and tie a toy plough to its legs and have it run along towing the thing across a field.
The detectives were left with an uncomfortable scenario, in which Charles Walton had been murdered by a group of vigilante farmers who believed he was to blame for their bad crops.
It was a difficult thing to prove, but Fabian realized the Cotswolds region was still steeped in superstition, and it was not a far fetched possibility. Beliefs discarded in other parts of England, like tales of demonic entities, headless horsemen and ghostly women still held sway here. In March, 1869 it was reported in the newspapers that in the hunting field of the North Cotswolds as described by eye-witnesses, Lord Coventry was out with a hunting party, and the hounds were heading towards Meon Hill when they came upon what was found afterward to be a poisoned rabbit, which they began to eat. Soon three from the pack dropped dead. Close by was a dead fox, which had also been poisoned. One of the dead hounds and part of the rabbit were sent to London to be analyzed, which resulted in the finding the rabbit was set out as a poison trap. Meon Hill a stone circle dating back to Neolithic and the Bronze Age, where remnants of Iron Age and Roman settlements had been found, were close to the murder scene. Even from these ancient times the area was associated with dark, supernatural forces. It was supposedly the inspiration for Weathertop in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The Celts believed the hill was where Arawn, Lord of the Underworld with his company of spectral hounds rested. His task was to gather departed souls every night, therefore travel at night was strongly cautioned against, since witnessing Arawn's hunting party was a portend of impending death and doom. Once the Christians came to the land, Meon Hill is where the devil took up residence. When Evesham Abbey was built in the 8th century, it was said the devil kicked a boulder down the hill, however Saint Ecguuine saw it incoming, prayed, and it fell to the ground and became Meon Hill. There's another variation to this in which only the prayers of the faithful diverted its trajectory. It came to rest on Cleeve Hill, near Cheltenham, where the villagers carved it into a giant stone cross to ward off further attacks. Robert Fabian included the following in his memoir Fabian of the Yard: On the hilltops around Lower Quinton, are circles of stones where witches are reputed to hold Sabbaths, and it was under the shadow of Meon Hill, not far from the stone circle of whispering knights, that on Valentine's Day of 1945 a rheumatic old man was found murdered.
Another folktale takes place in a nearby field known as The Close, which sits atop an ancient earthwork site. It is told that a young man from Long Compton signed a pact with the devil by drawing a circle on the ground and reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards. In exchange for his soul he was gifted with 12 imps as his servants. At the Banbury Fair, he summoned a demonic spirit in the form of a black rooster.
In Fabian's memoir he mentions the "stone circle of whispering knights" which are megaliths known as The Rollright Stones dating back to 2,500 B.C. and which are a few miles from Meon Hill. There are the King's Men, a circle of 77 large stones that were used for ceremonial purposes; the King's Stone a single monolith that is north of the King's Men; and the Whispering Knights which are 5 upright stone that lean in towards each other to the east. The Rollright Stones are said to be what remains of a Viking king and his army, which were cursed after they angered a local witch known as Mother Shipton. Charged with supernatural force, it is said that on certain nights the men are released from their curse and at the stroke of midnight they come to life. They go to drink water at a nearby spring, and join hands to dance. Faerie folk who live in caves underneath the stone circle join them in the festivities. The King's Stone is seen as a phallic symbol where local women who were unable to conceive would visit on a full moon night, and rub their naked breasts against the stone, resulting in a baby nine months later. The stone circle is also where witches would gather. In the 16th century a witch-hunting team from Oxford investigated reports of coven activity at the site. A hundred years later a "witche" from Little Rollright was charged with attempted murder using black magic. She was accused of attending sabbats at the Rollright Stones and Board Hill (outside of Oxford). She was sentenced to hang. It is rumored that Charles Walton, as a child, would "steal out to the mysterious Rollright Stones nearby and watch witch rituals."
In 2015, a well-furnished burial was found of a young Saxon woman near the King Stone. The grave had no coffin, and she was put in the earth around the 7th century when England was converting to Christianity. She was aligned south-north in a shallow grave.
One of the items in the tomb was a copper alloy skillet left by her head. A circular embossed silver disc inlaid with a single garnet, was probably set into the base of the skillet. There was also a silver sheet decorative mount with a crescent-shaped plate. The skillet is a rare find, and it is modelled on the Roman trulleum and used in handwashing rituals. A large rock crystal bead still attached to the remnants of a chain lay at the left side of the body. Crystal beads were usually found in the burials of high status Merovingian and Anglo-Saxon women of childbearing age and were a "conspicuous sign of wealth". The discovery of the grave confirms that the area had special significance, perhaps as portal into the afterlife since it was used since prehistoric times for burials.
Another unusual factor of the Walton murder, is a superstition of what is known as a Black Dog. Whether it's seen on a lonely highway, on the outskirts of a village or in a fog-shrouded cemetery the connotation is always negative.
Some believe they are demonic spirits, or the ghosts of murdered or executed individuals who haunt the place of their death. They are universally seen as cursed entities, and harbingers of misfortune. During the Walton investigation, Robert Fabian found himself in the vicinity of St. Swithin's Cemetery, close to Meon Hill. It caught his attention when he saw a black dog on a nearby stone wall that watched him closely. He looked away, and when he looked for the animal it had disappeared. He left the field and came across a boy; he asked him if he was looking for his dog. Once he specified he had seen a "black dog", the boy paled and ran away. Soon the village heard of the encounter, and that the detective had seen the "the ghost". To cement the superstition, the following morning a cow dropped dead while grazing in the field. As Fabian continued in his attempt to interview villagers he noted in his memoir that "when he walked into the village pub that evening, silence fell like a physical blow. Cottage doors shut in our faces, and even the most innocent witnesses seemed unable to meet our eyes. Some became ill after we spoke to them." A few days later, a black dog was hung from a tree near where Charles Walton's body was found earlier in the week. Fabian considered it might be a sick prank, or a warning. He would write: "[that we] realized for certain that we were up against witchcraft." Perhaps it was these events that led the detective to believe Charles Walton was a sacrificial victim in a "ghastly climax of a pagan rite." Strangely, the same evening, a police car ran over and killed a similar dog in a lane near the village.
Margaret Murray, a professor from University College in London, and expert in European witchcraft took an interest in the Walton case. She believed the old man was killed as a way to replenish the ground with his blood.
According to Murray, "The belief is, that if life is taken out of the ground […] it must be replaced by a blood sacrifice." What information is known about Iron Age Britain has been gleaned from Roman historians and archaeological digs. Both sources point to ritual sacrifice as being an important part of the Celtic magico-religious system. Inanimate objects, animals and on occasion humans were the victims of ritual murder, especially in times of famine or pestilence. Celtic Druids were known to burn people in wicker effigies, as well as strangle, drown, poison, stone, behead, dismember and bury their victims alive. The Druids practiced what was known as the Threefold Death, in which the individual dies at the same time in three ways, either by drowning, hanging (or strangulation), wounding (throat cutting) or head injuries. The Celts were known for their fascination with the number three. The intent was to ensure maximum bloodshed to appease the gods.
Bog bodies such as Lindow Man were found to have evidence of throat cutting, strangulation and blunt force trauma. He was not a slave or a captive. The healthy, young man had hands that were smooth and his nails were manicured. It's believed he was an aristocrat, but not a warrior since he didn't have any battle scars. According to Anne Ross and Don Robins, British archaeologists he was a Druid prince who came from Ireland about 60 A.D. when the Romans were conquering Britain and ending druidism. They believe he was a willing sacrifice, offered to help defeat the Roman legions. He had dark, red hair and a full beard like a druid, and his only adornment was a circlet of fox fur. They claim his name was Lovernius, the Fox-Man.
He was furiously bludgeoned three times about the head, then garroted by a thrice-knotted sinew cord, which compressed the jugular vein. Either of these attacks could have killed him, but at the point of death a long, thin blade was plunged into his throat to exsanguinate him, before he was symbolically drowned. There was mistletoe pollen in the victim's stomach which is strongly associated with the Druids. It is a poisonous plant known to cause convulsions, and is unlikely to have been ingested accidentally. The event that led to the discovery of Lindow Man, was a macabre find unearthed in 1983. A severed woman's head was found by commercial peat cutters working near Lindow Moss an ancient bog. Police responded, and it seemed there was a local man who was a suspect in the disappearance of his wife 20 years before. They questioned him again, alluding to the grisly find. Peter Reyn-Bardt confessed that he had indeed raped his wife, then killed and dismembered her in the Lindow Moss bog. He was convicted of his wife's murder, even though no trace of her body was found. Ironically it turned out the woman's head didn't belong to his wife, but a woman that was put into the bog 1,700 years before. In 1984, a leg was found, but this time it was an archaeologist who responded and went on to find the well-preserved body of an Iron Age man. The Druids believed that when the winter was ending and the earth needed to be reawakened, it should be replenished with life-giving blood. The timing of the Walton murder corresponded to the Celtic Midwinter festival of Imbolc based on the old pre-Gregorian calendar.
Three years before Charles Walton was murdered, another occult-related killing was unearthed in nearby Worcestershire.
It was April, 1943 and World War II raged throughout Europe when four English teenagers were hunting for birds' nests in a private estate near Birmingham named Hagley Wood. Inside the hollow of a tree they found a woman's skeleton. It was hard to judge how she was killed, but a piece of taffeta stuck in her mouth was believed to have asphyxiated her. It was estimated she was killed in October, 1941. Next to the tree were the bones of one of her hands which had been severed. She did not fit any reports of missing persons, and there was no match to her dental records. Also due to the war there was a large amount of strangers that had come to the area, which could account as to why they could not identify her. Seven months after the discovery of the body is when the graffiti started. The first read: "Who put Lubella down the wych-elm?" It was followed by "Hagley Wood Bella", but the one that stuck was "Who put Bella in the wych-elm?" There were several theories as to who "Bella" was, but soon rumors of black magic were whispered in connection to the murder. Margaret Murray, an expert in folklore and witch cults suggested Bella may have been killed in an occult ceremony; the removal of the hand typical of a black magic execution. Leaving the body in the hollow of a tree was believed by occultist would prevent the spirit from causing harm, especially to the person who put them there. She was quoted as saying, "The very act of placing a body in the hollow of a tree is associated with witchcraft. The cult of tree-worship is an ancient one and it is linked with sacrifice." The decades slipped away, and in 2009 the case was officially closed. When the files were turned over to the Worcestershire county archives, Bella's bones were missing. James Webster a forensic expert had inspected them in 1943, and afterward they disappeared from the records. Some believe it was a cover-up, but ultimately without her remains there was no way to run DNA tests.
In 1950, Margaret Murray who visited Lower Quinton said of the village: "I am almost satisfied that it was a witchcraft related murder. It is typical of those places where superstitions and beliefs in witchcraft still exist. One significant thing is that it occurred on St Valentine’s Day – February the 14th. In the pre-Christian era from which many rituals still live, February was a sacrificial month."
In 1952, the Birmingham Psychic Research Society had made plans to visit the site of the murder in February, however the expedition was cancelled when they couldn't find a medium who would take part in the séance to contact Charles Walton. One of members of the society said, "We were anxious to go, but the mediums we knew would have nothing to do with it." An official from the group said he had discovered something about Charles Walton. He said: "In an old county magazine of the 1870s, I found a cutting about a young ploughboy names Charles Walton. He had been set upon by some Warwickshire villagers after he had told how he saw an old woman in black behaving mysteriously in a lane. It is very strange. Was Walton psychic?" It's not known if this was the same incident referred to in J. Harvey's book from 1929.
It wasn't until November, 1952 that the séance was carried out, halfway up the slopes of Meon Hill. They finally had a medium who accompanied the group "across ploughed fields, barbed wire fences, muddy ditches and puddles of icy water." Shortly after they began, a blizzard began and sleet fell.
H.R. Mills from the society accompanied Mrs. Higginbotham the medium, who went into trance and said: "I forgive. I forgive. I deserved what was coming to me but not in such a brutal way." After ten minutes of other unintelligible muttering the séance ended. The medium had started to channel the dead man not 50 yards from the white gate by which the body was found. They left and trudged back 2 miles to their vehicles. Detective Chief Superintendent Spooner of the Warwickshire CID, would visit Lower Quinton and the scene of the crime every year on St. Valentine’s Day. After Fabian and Webb had returned to London, he kept investigating the crime. He would go on to say: "the more I visit the village the more I am convinced that Walton died in some black magic ritual." He remained convinced that the killer was a local man.
In August, 1960 an event occurred that reopened the case, which at that time was only 15 years old. Charles Walton's missing watch was found. A building worker found it in what used to be Walton's back garden at 15 Upper Quinton. At the time of the murder, an old shed stood on the spot. The question was whether Walton had lost the watch, or if the murderer slipped into the shed and left there since it was an incriminating piece of evidence.
Inside the watch case was a piece of colored glass. The villagers opined this was a piece of witch glass used to deflect or absorb evil thoughts directed at the owner. Oddly the police had searched the shed right after the crime and found nothing. Why would the killer have risked returning it here, instead of disposing of it some other way? Charles Walton was buried in St. Swithin's Cemetery across the road from where he lived for many years. His tombstone disappeared, perhaps done on purpose or it was lost when the churchyard renovations were completed 50 years after his death. No one can recall exactly where he was buried, since there is no surviving family. Like the murder of Bella in 1943, the case of Charles Walton remains unsolved. There was never a deathbed confession or overlooked clue that came to light, which was Robert Fabian's hope, since this was the one case he didn't solve.
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