Transcript for Case 284: Widden Hill Farm

Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. This episode was originally released on case files Patreon, Apple Premium and Spotify Premium feeds as an early bonus for our paid subscribers. These episodes are designed to be slightly shorter, allowing us to cover a broader range of cases. To receive these episodes early and add free, you can support case files on your preferred platform. The village of Horton is nestled on the edge of the rolling hillside and grassy meadows that defined the Cotswolds in southwest England. In 1984, Horton was home to about 250 residents. Most of them were farming families like the back houses, the owner operators of a dairy farm called Widen Hill. 43-year-old patriarch Graham Backhouse lived at the property with his wife and two young children. He worked on the farm full-time with the assistance of several farm hands and herdsmen. At 300 acres, Whittenhill Farm was a decent size for a non-industrial operation. To walk the entirety of the farm's perimeter took at least 45 minutes. On Tuesday April 3, 1984, one of the farm hands was conducting an inspection of Whittenhill's fence line when he came across a disturbing side. Impailed on a fence post was a freshly decapitated sheep's head. Pinned beneath it was a handwritten note containing two words. You next. When Wittenhill's owner Graham Backhouse was informed about the gruesome discovery, he immediately knew that the message was directed at him. Over the last few weeks, someone had made it clear they had event data against Graham. It started in mid-March. Graham was sorting through the farm's mail when a handwritten letter caught his eye. It was addressed to Graham specifically and read At last, I have found you. You have ruined my sister's life. Now you must pay. The sender didn't elaborate any further, nor did they reveal their identity. Graham wasn't overly concerned about the letter, as he had no idea what it could be alluding to. He threw it in the bin. Days later, the farmhouse phone rang. Graham answered the call. On the other line was a man whose voice he didn't recognise. It sounded like he was using a fake Irish or Scottish accent. The caller threatened to blow Graham's balls off before hanging up. The following week Graham received another mysterious fan call. As soon as he heard the male voice he could tell it was the same anonymous caller. This time, the men threatened Graham's family, referring to his wife, 37-year-old Margaret, and their children, eight-year-old Harry, and six-year-old Sophie, by name. Graham told Margaret about the letter and phone calls, but otherwise kept the harassment to himself. After the discovery of the slaughtered sheep in the explicit death rat left on their fence in April, Graham could no longer dismiss the danger. He contacted the police. When officers arrived at Widenhill, neither Graham nor Margaret could offer any explanation as to why they had been targeted. With no immediate leads, police connected a recording device to the Farms phone line. Should the mystery man call again, police would at least have a recording of his threats. In the meantime, investigators searched for anyone who might hold a garage against Graham back house. They discovered he had a blemish to his name. Just over ten years earlier, Graham and his father, Bill back house, were convicted of stealing three young cows belonging to a neighboring farmer. The judge described the theft as disgraceful and dishonorable. The back housemen were each find 600 pounds, the equivalent of roughly 10,000 pounds in today's money. However, police quickly dismissed the disgruntled farmer as a potential suspect in the recent harassment. He passed away in 1977. After Graham's conviction for theft, he spent the next decade rebuilding his reputation in Horton. Policing queries revealed that the back houses were considered a typical, happy farming family who were well respected around town. Six days after the discovery of the sheep's head on the morning of Monday, April 9, Graham walked to the farm's mailbox. Inside was a handwritten envelope addressed only to back house. Graham immediately recognized the distinctive handwriting Inside was a letter that read. Came twice last week, but the pigs were about. There was no name or signature at the bottom, only the words. See you soon. Later that morning, Margaret Backhouse needed to drive into town to pick up supplies from the vet. Graham reminded Margaret that her fiat was playing up so she should take his Volvo instead. Margaret entered the barn next to the farmhouse where her husband kept his vehicle. She got into the driver's seat and turned the key in the ignition. A great force of energy exploded from underneath the vehicle, tearing a hole through the floor and ripping the driver's seat in half. There was blood everywhere. The tissue on Margaret's thighs and buddocks had been blown to shreds. She opened the car door and fell onto the ground, managing to crawl her way out of the barn. Michael cleverly was driving the local school bus past Woodenhill Farm when he noticed Margaret backhoused lying on the driveway desperately waving one hand in the air. Michael stopped his bus and dashed to Margaret's side. Schoolgirl Susan Wilkie also jumped off the bus. Susan lived on a nearby farm and knew the backhouses. She ran through wooden hill, shouting, Graham, Margaret's had an accident. Graham emerged from the milking shed out of E-shot of the blast. When he saw Margaret's injuries, he turned pale and began shaking. He ran into the farmhouse and called an ambulance before re-emerging with a blanket that he lay over Margaret. Through pain and shock, Margaret told Graham not to move or touch her. Margaret was taken to hospital with severe injuries to her buttocks, thigh and lower back. Surgeon spent seven hours removing deeply embedded trapnel and did their best to salvage their remaining tissue. Meanwhile, police sealed off Widenhill. An army bombed disposal unit was called in to clear the scene. Once it was deemed safe, police explosive experts processed the wreckage of the Volvo. Little evidence of the explosion was visible from the car's exterior. Only the roof was slightly dented and a window pan cracked. However, when police opened the doors, there was practically nothing left of the driver's side floor or seat. Specialists determined that a homemade pot bomb had been placed under the car beneath the driver's seat. The bomb was made using a ten centimeter long piece of steel scuff holding pipe, which had been screwed onto a cast iron collar. The pipe had been packed with four and a half thousand lead pellets, and the gunpowder from up to 12 shotgun cartridges. Margaret Backhouse wouldn't have noticed anything out of the ordinary. The bomb had been wired to the ignition and the fuse of a heating element that warmed up the driver's seat, with the wiring concealed from view. As soon as Margaret turned the Volvo's ignition, the bomb exploded. In any other car, the explosion would have likely been fatal. However, the backhours' Volvo was a particular model that had been more flexible floor panels and a solid heavy seat that was bolted to the frame. The floor panels absorb to the vast majority of the bombs impact, and the seats sturdy construction acted like a safety cage. These features had saved Margaret's life. One detective described to the bomb to the Bristol-Levening Post as, a diabolical device placed by someone who has no consideration for human life. Case file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. Producing a podcast might appear simple, but in truth, it actually involves a lot of behind-the-scenes work. Each case file episode requires thorough research, writing, and recording, plus crucial promotional tasks such as marketing and merchandising. If you run an e-commerce business, you can relate to the amount of work it takes to produce something that stands out from the crowd. Like us, you want to optimize your workflow and to reduce costs. Shipstation is the multi-carrier shipping solution that integrates wherever you sell online. When you optimize your shipping process and connect to a network of expert partners, you reclaim valuable time for what truly matters. Growing your business. 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Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support CaseFile to continue to deliver quality content. Margaret Backhouse was a fundraiser and local treasureer for the save the children charity. It seemed highly unlikely that she'd run a fell of anyone in town. Given that Graham back house was the one who usually drove the Volvo, police believed that he had been the intended target of the car bomb. Fearing for their safety, Graham and Margaret's children were sent to stay with their grandmother. Graham returned to Widenhill with the 24-hour police presence established to guard against any further attacks. While Margaret recovered in hospital, Graham attended the police station for an interview. With the Hirasa delivering on their threats, Graham knew it was time to talk. Contrary to what he'd previously told detectives, Graham conceded there could be someone in the village who held a grudge against him. He admitted he was having a boundary dispute with one of his neighbours. Detectives noted this information, but deemed it an unlikely motive. It was much more likely that the person responsible for the harassment and bomb held a more personal grievance against Graham. With a little further prodding, Graham made another confession. During the 12 years he'd been married to Margaret, he'd had multiple affairs. In the month slating up to the car bomb, he'd had a drunken sexual encounter with a woman named Caroline Hogginson. Caroline was the wife of Graham's good friend, David, who'd been the best man at Graham and Margaret's wedding. Graham admitted he'd also been having occasional sex with the 24-year-old Sheppardus named Jillian Lippiatt. Jillian lived on her family's farm on the edge of Horton, which I've looked to witness hell. According to Graham, the two had been casually sleeping together for the past nine years. Graham tonight having romantic feelings towards Gillian, but said he was flattered by the attention from someone half his age. Graham backhours as infidelity confession didn't come as a complete surprise to police. Horton was a small place. Rumours had already been circulating around town, with one local telling the Sunday Times, We all know each other very well. Some of us, too well. A lover's revenge quickly rose to the top of the list for potential motives. Detectives considered whether Jillian Lippia could be behind the bomb and harassment, or maybe someone in a Lippia'd family was upset about Graham's sexual interest in Jillian. Her father was one of the best and most accomplished serial growers in the business, and a popular personality in Horton. He and his family had been close friends with the back houses for more than a decade. When questioned by police, the members of the Libbyat family all denied responsibility for the carbon. As for the suggestion that she was having a sexual relationship with Graham Backhouse, Jillian said it was a complete figment of Graham's imagination. She called it extremely distasteful and denied any such contact, saying her interactions with Graham over the years had been very limited. He occasionally helped her sheer sheep or utherwise her injured animals, but nothing sexual had ever occurred between them. unsure what to make of this, police turned their attention to the other woman Graham had admitted to being intimate with, Caroline Hogkinson. They discovered that Caroline's husband David was an electrical engineer who had previously worked with explosives. He'd also conducted repairs on Graham's Volvo in the past. Police arrived at the Huggkinson House to question the couple, only to find that David was in Spain and had been there since before the explosion. However, David's absence from the area on the day of the bomb didn't necessarily rule him out as a suspect. As soon as he returned home, he was promptly placed under arrest. David Hodgkinson was held for questioning for two days, but police couldn't find any evidence to connect him to the bomb, and they had no choice but to release him. Nine days after the explosion, Graham Backhouse insisted he no longer wanted the 24-hour police presence at the farmhouse. He wanted the bomber to, quote, have another go while Margaret was still in hospital and the kids were safely staying elsewhere. It seemed to be the only way to identify the person responsible and Graham believed the bomber was unlikely to strike while the police were there. Investigators reluctantly agreed, but as a precaution, they installed a panic button onto the farmhouse phone providing a direct connection to the police. Weeks passed without incident. Having reached a dead end with the lover's revenge theory, police looked into the land to dispute Grand Backhouse claimed to be having with his neighbour, Colin Bedale Taylor. The 63-year-old former army officer lived in a converted cottage known as the Gatehouse. The cottage's driveway ran alongside the backfields of Widenhill Farm. According to Graham, Colin had been denying him his legal right to use the driveway so that he could access the fields. On Monday, April 30, three weeks after the bombing, detectives visited the home of Colin the Dale Taylor and his wife, also named Margaret. The couple had lived in the gatehouse for over 20 years where they raised their four children. When questioned about the boundary dispute, Colin denied having any conflict with Graham or anyone else involved with Wooden Hill. He claimed he and Margaret barely knew the back houses. Colin was later excused so that the detectives could speak candidly with his wife. They then asked her about Colin's criminal convictions. Margaret was blindsided. She had no idea what the detectives were talking about. They explained that Colin had been convicted twice for shoplifting. After recovering from her shock, Margaret explained that the last few years had been very difficult, especially for Colin. In 1981, Colin lost his job and fell into depression. The following year, Colin and Margaret's youngest son, 19-year-old Digby, was killed in a car accident. The driver of the car was digby's friend, Denzel willocard. Denzel survived the crash and was charged with reckless driving, but later cleared of any criminal liability. He was eventually employed by Graham Backhouse to do odd jobs at wooden hill. Collins' mental health suffered further each time he crossed paths with Denzel. Despite these hardships, Margaret assured the detectives that Colin had just started saying a psychiatrist and was getting the help he needed. During this discussion, Colin visited himself in his workshop. As a way to pass time, he had taken to restoring old furniture for people in the village. Eventually, Colin put his tools down and popped his head inside the house. Margaret was still speaking with the detectives Colin interrupted briefly to tell his wife that he was going to the back houses, but offered no explanation as to why. Neither she nor the detectives questioned it. It was around sunset as Colin Bedale Taylor walked the short distance to wooden hill farm. Outside, the place was quiet. The workers had left for the day, and there were no longer any police guarding the property. Lights were on inside the farmhouse, as Colin knocked on the front door. Ten minutes later, the sound of sirens pierced the air. Eight police cars and an ambulance sped off Horton Hill. Someone had raised the panic alarm at Whidden Hill. Officers entered the farmhouse to a confronting side. Graham backhouse was standing in the hallway, dripping with blood, The left side of his face had been slashed from ear to lip. A long, deep wound ran from his left shoulder across to his right hip. The side him was a 12-gauge shotgun. Colin Bedale Taylor laid dead on the hallway floor. He had taken two shotgun blasts to the chest. In his right hand was a standly knife. Graham was swiftly taken to hospital where he underwent surgery to close his wounds. The injury to his face alone required 50 stitches. Police kept a guard over both his room and Margaret's while the back house's children fled Horton with their grandparents to ensure their safety. When Graham was able to speak, police interviewed him at his bedside. He told them that Colin the Dale Taylor had knocked on the farmhouse door Graham invited him inside and the two sat down at the kitchen table. At first, Colin inquired about Margaret's recovery, then asked whether Graham had any old furniture that needed repair. But the mood suddenly shifted. Colin told Graham that God had sent him. Court of God by his comment, Graham laughed, which angered Colin. He told Graham it was blasphemous to laugh at God, and that Graham would pay for it. Collins moved then quickly shifted again. He became quiet and calm, asking, why did you kill my son? Graham told Colin that he didn't, reminding him that Digby had died in a car accident. It was then that Colin produced a Stanley knife and plunged at Graham, shouting that he was doing God's work. Colin slashed Graham across the face in the chest. In shock and bleeding heavily, Graham managed to flee into the hallway. He grabbed the 12-gate shotgun that had been leaning on the stairs and spun around to face his attacker. Graham shouted for Colin to stop, warning that he would shoot. But Colin kept moving forward, the Stanley knife raised. Graham had no choice. He fired two shots and Colin fell to the floor. Two days after the shooting, Graham Backhouse was discharged from hospital. He spent a few days with his mother before being permitted to return to Widenhill. Later that week, his wife Margaret was also discharged. She had recovered from the bomb blast but still required crutches to move around. Margaret travelled directly to her parents' home in the West Midlands to be reunited with her children. With Colin Badeil Taylor dead after being identified as the backhauser's harasser, it seemed to be an open and shut case. But investigators weren't so sure. When Graham Backhaar said being recovering from his injuries, police conducted a grid search of Colombo de Hotelis property. As one officer was scanning the front garden, a flash of metal in the grass caught his eye. Upon closer inspection, the officer realized there was a piece of scaffolding pipe. It looked remarkably similar to the one used in the Backhaar's car bomb. The two pipes were examined on the microscope. When compared, markings caused by a hacksaw on the end of each, matched up. This provided a direct link between column the Dale Taylor and the bomb. But there was something about the pipe's location that didn't seem right. The grass underneath it hadn't withered, and it was barely flattened by the weight of the pipe. It appeared that the pipe had only been in the grass for a day or two. This raised the question, why would Colin relocate the pipe three weeks after the bomb, and why leave it in a place where it could be so easily found? Police began to consider the possibility that Colin Bedale Taylor hadn't touched the pipe at all. He'd been framed, Case fire will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors.

Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content. Following the explosion that nearly killed Margaret Backhouse, one of the wooden hill farm hands at our police, he record hearing noises coming from an outbuilding a few days before the bomb went off. At the time, the farmhand thought he was the only person on the premises. He went to investigate the noise, only to find Graham backhouse cutting a length of pipe with a hacksaw. Schoolgirl Susan Wilkie had been one of the first on the scene after the car bomb went off. Susan told detectives that when she ran to tell Graham that Margaret had been injured, she never mentioned anything about a bomb or an explosion. Graham couldn't have heard the explosion from the milking shed, and he didn't enter the barn at the time. Yet, when he found for the ambulance, he specifically told the operator that his wife had been injured in an explosion. The person who installed the car bomb had to be familiar with the particular model of Volvo. They would have also needed extended access to the vehicle in order to fit the device. Graham backhoused ticked both of these boxes, Throughout their investigations, detectives had remained open to the possibility that Graham was involved in the attack. But there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and by all accounts, Graham and Margaret had a happy and loving relationship. It seemed much more likely that someone else was responsible, and as such they directed their inquiries elsewhere. After Colin Badele Taylor's death, several more questions were raised. Graham told officers that Colin had slashed him with the Stanley knife while the two were in the kitchen. But when forensic investigators analyzed the crime scene, they found no cast-off blood spatter on the walls, floor or furniture, as would be expected. Instead, round drops of blood were grouped together in several locations on the kitchen floor. Some of the blood drops were found underneath the upturned kitchen chairs, while smears of blood were also found on the backrest of each chair. After being injured, Graham claimed to have fled the kitchen and stumbled into the hallway to grab his shotgun. However, there was no trail of blood leading between these two locations, and not a drop of blood on the shotgun. droplets of blood matching Graham's blood type were also found on Collins' body. With the blood evidence raising more questions than answers, investigators turned to the threatening letters that Graham backhours had received. A handwriting expert compared the notes to a sample of Colomberdale tail as handwriting. The lettering was completely different. The notes were then compared to the handwriting of Graham backhours. This time, the similarities were significant. On the death rat accompanying the sheep's head, the words you next had been scrolled on a piece of line to notebook paper. Some of the sheep's blood had ceased into the paper, but analysts were still able to make out an imprint on the back of the page. It was a complex spiral shape to doodle. When police were collecting evidence from the wooden hill farmhouse after column was shot, they seized a small lined notebook from Graham's study. The paper was of a similar size to the Unix to note. Investigators flicked through the pages until something caught their eye. Drawn in pen was the exact same spiral shape to doodle. With this evidence emerging, investigators grew confident that Graham backhours had planted the bomb with the intention of killing his wife. Failing to do so, he framed Colomber Dale Taylor for the crime. The question was, why? Graham's financial records revealed that he had inherited Whittenhill Farm from his father Bill in 1979. At the time, the farm was a profitable business renowned for producing champion dairy cows. In an attempt to increase the farm's revenue, Graham tried his hand at growing cereal crops on some of the excess land. But the crops were quickly ravaged by the plant disease known as take-all, and the venture failed. Unlike his father, Graham was not an astute businessman. Over the next four years, he mismanaged to the dairy farm and it began to lose money. By the end of 1983, the farm was 70,000 pounds in debt. Graham had run it into the ground. A search of the back house's personal records revealed that Graham and Margaret had recently applied to double the payout on their life insurance policies. In the event of Margaret's death, Graham stood to receive £100,000. Only days after the application was made, the so-called campaign of threats against Graham began. On Thursday April 5, 1984, the new life insurance policies were approved Four days later, Margaret unwittingly detonated the car bomb. Having failed in his plot to kill his wife, Investigators believed that Graham Backhouse was faced with two problems. The first was that he still needed to pay off his crippling debt. Inquiries with his insurance company revealed that in the week after the explosion, Graham submitted a claim on Margaret's behalf. Given that she'd survived, they weren't entitled to the full 100,000 pounds, but Margaret's serious injuries would have warranted at least some amount of compensation. Graham's second larger problem was that he needed to deflect suspicion away from himself. In addition to coming clean about his legitimate infidelities, he fabricated an affair with the Jillian Lippian. He also concocted a boundary dispute with Colin Bedale Taylor. These admissions opened up several lines of investigation, all painting Graham as a target for someone's grievance. Police believed that Graham's plan was to frame someone else, and then kill that person himself, citing self-defense. In preparation, he dismissed the 24-hour police guard, For the next stage of his plan, Graham needed to lure one of the possible targets to the farmhouse. By Monday April 30, Graham had settled on Colin the Dale Taylor. That afternoon, Graham invited Colin over to Whitton Hill, likely under the pretence of doing some furniture restoration work. Police were called to the farm within 10 minutes of Colin leaving his home. Investigators therefore concluded that Graham had opened fire on Colin almost immediately after he set foot inside. Colin was shot twice in the chest. Forensics revealed that the second shot had been fired as Colin was falling backwards, or lying flat on the floor, disputing Graham's claim of self-defense. Graham then set about staging the crime scene and making it look like he'd been attacked. The wounds to Graham's face and body were continuous slices, indicating that he was standing very still when the injuries occurred. No defensive cuts were found on his hands or arms. A forensic expert concluded that Graham's injuries were self-inflicted. After slashing his own face and torso, police believed that Graham lent over Collins' body and placed the Stanley knife in his right hand. This explained why drops of Graham's blood were found on Collins' body. It also explained why Colin was still holding the knife. Had he really been wielding the knife at Graham, investigate his believed Colin would have dropped it after being shot. The round drops of blood on the kitchen floor and the contact blood on the backrest of the chairs indicated that Graham then walked around the room, upturning the chairs to make a look like a struggle had taken place. Only when Graham was satisfied with the scene, did he hit the panic button and wait for the police. Twelve days after the shooting and almost five weeks after the car bomb, Graham back house joined his family in the middlelands for the day. When he returned home to Widenhill that evening, detectives paid him a visit. Graham Backhouse was arrested and charged with the murder of Colombe de Otele and the attempted murder of Margaret Backhouse. He was held in remand awaiting trial. Shortly after, prison guards confiscated a letter addressed to local newspaper the Bristol-Levening Post as it was being smuggled out of the prison. Panned by an anonymous writer, the letter read in part. Them three letters in the back house bond case, I wrote him. Column the Dale Taylor made me. He said it was God's work because back house was a wicked man. Column never said anything about any bomb until afterwards. I would have not have done it if he had said. I told Column that God would punish him, and now he is dead. God has forgiven me. I don't trust pigs. That is why I write to you. Please help. Police knew immediately who wrote the letter. A few days earlier, Graham Backhouse had written to his wife Margaret claiming that the police had framed him. He was desperate to, quote, get out of this hellhole. Graham revealed he's planned to write an anonymous letter to a newspaper to make people believe that someone else was responsible for the bomb. Graham boasted that he could write the letter well enough to throw the police case into confusion. He just needed Margaret to send him more writing materials. Graham concluded, I know it is wrong of me to ask you to do this, but I am innocent. I have no one else to turn to. You are my only hope. I love you." Margaret didn't follow through on Graham's request. Instead, she handed the letter to the police. The handwriting on the Bristol-Levening Post letter was analysed by an expert, leaving no doubt that it had been written by Graham Backhouse. Graham's trial commenced in January 1985. He pleaded not guilty to both charges and testified to his innocence on the stand. The prosecutor told the court that Graham backhours intended to kill his wife Margaret in order to pay his debts with her life insurance money. He said that Graham's crimes were carefully planned, quite deliberate, and carried out in cold blood. Margaret Backhouse sobbed quietly in the public gallery each day as the evidence against her husband was laid out. Graham denied this version of events. He maintained his story about being ambushed by Colombo Dail Taylor, saying he'd feared for his life during the attack. In his closing statement, the prosecutor told the jury that they simply needed to decide who was the villain in the case. Was it Colin Badele Taylor or Graham Backhouse? When the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision, the judge permitted a majority verdict. 90 minutes later, with the majority of 10 to 2, the jury found Graham Backhouse guilty on both counts. Graham began shaking in the dark as he was given two life sentences. The judge concluded You are a devious and wicked man. The enormity of the crime that you have committed is very grave. Not content with trying to kill a wife who, according to your own evidence, loved you and had done you no wrong. You then said about cold bloodedly to plot and kill your neighbour who had never done you any harm, and whom you barely knew. Outside court, Horton locals spoke of their relief at the verdict. One woman told reporters, there has been a cloud hanging over us since the car bom, but now we hope the village can get back to normal. Jillian Lippiad, the woman Graham claimed to be having an ongoing affair with, said, Backhouse goes down as an utter liar. He is not said one word of truth in court. Margaret Backhouse requested privacy for herself and her family. Despite the trauma that the farmhouse represented, Margaret and her children continued to live at Wooden Hill until it was sold six months later. The property eventually became a horse boarding stable and riding a state. Supported by the community, Margaret remained close to Horton. The following year, her divorce from Graham was finalised, with the court readily agreeing with the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. In 1994, less than 10 years into his sentence, Graham Backhouse was playing cricket in the prison exercise yard when he suffered a heart attack. He died three days later. The following year, 48-year-old Margaret Backhouse passed away from cancer. She was survived by her two teenage children. Colin Bedale Taylor had been a man of the people. In addition to his furniture restoration work, he had served as a chairman on the Village Hall Committee and had helped draw plans to rebuild the community hall. Just the day before he was killed, Colin had agreed to become a sidesman at the Village Church, a role that would entail handing out him books and showing people to their seats. That same day, he'd erected a handmade wooden sign outside the local school, which was facing budget cuts, so that its name could be proudly displayed. The church rector described Colin as a quiet man who was full of fun. In the wake of Graham's conviction, he expressed relief that Colin's name had been completely cleared. Another village are told the Western Daily Press, Colin was a good friend to a lot of people and had done many kindnesses. He will be tremendously missed by the whole village. Six weeks after Colin's murder, nearly every resident of Horton crammed into the small village church to attend his funeral. Referring to the large number of attendees, one local said, The people of Horton will say with their feet what they cannot say with their mouths about the death of Colin. Colin was later asked to next to his beloved son, Digby. In the weeks that followed, plans were made to erect a plaque in Colin's honor. A community spokesperson told the Bristol-Levening Post We don't want to remember him as a murdered man, but as someone who has done a lot of work in the village for years.