On April 9 , 1984 , Margaret Backhouse ’s motorcar would n’t begin . Her married man , styler - turned - sheep farmer Graham , quickly offered up his vehicle instead . But as soon as she turned the firing , a bomb rocked the English countryside . Scandal — and telling feats of forensic science — soon follow .
fabulously , though she ’d been practically baby-sit on top of a killer potpourri of shotgun pellets and nitroglycerin , Margaret survived the blast and crawled out from the Volvo ; passers - by spotted her and saved her lifespan . The bomb calorimeter had been attach tothe car ’s fuse box and heater :
“ The hummer had been on full so that , in fact , as presently as one turned on the ignition to the side before it start the engine , that would have sent the current through … and ‘ bang ’ , ” said James Black , QC , a prosecutor for the Crown . The same day the turkey endure off , a letter arrived at the house : “ Came tyce last week but the fuzz were about see you before long , ” it read .
The terror was aimed at Graham Backhouse , and it was n’t the first one he ’d received . A week or so before the bombing , a doer at the couple ’s farm , Widden Hill , had receive a severed sheep ’s head teacher stick on a fence post , with an minacious notation attached : “ You next . ” Backhousehad complained to the policeabout this and other torment he ’d been receiving from sinister strange sources , but they had n’t generate around to investigating them … until the good time .
The law were unable to identify the carefully - disguise handwriting , but the eagle eyes of Mike Hall , the text file tester at the nearby Birmingham Forensic Laboratory , noticed the faint impression of a doodle on the Sir Frederick Handley Page , unwittingly left behind by the scourge - maker . It was a seemingly minor cue , but he filed it away just in case .
The bomb was enough to convince constabulary that Backhouse needed aegis while his wife recovered from her terrible injuries in the infirmary . He assume it , but only in brief . Andthings got weird from there :
On eighteenth April Backhouse requested that the 24 - hour guard duty be take following the fitting of a “ scare clitoris . ” This alarm system was connect to the local police station and , on 30th April , it was activated .
When the law attended , in the phase of PC Richard Yeadon , it was to bump the body of Colyn Bedale - Taylor . Bedale - Taylor , 63 - years - quondam and a neighbour of Backhouse , had died from a shotgun blast to the pectus . Clutched in his hand was a Stanley knife . A weeping Backhouse was find lying in the lounge drenched in blood from knife wound to the face and breast .
His account was that Bedale - Taylor had get in and told him that he had get to revivify some furniture . When being tell apart that there was no furniture to touch on he had accused Backhouse of being responsible for the last of his son in a car wreck in 1982 .
He then told Backhouse that he , Bedale - Taylor , was responsible for planting the railroad car bomb and attacked Backhouse with the Stanley knife . Backhouse had run back into the house and grabbed a hit man . When Bedale - Taylor had refused to back off , he had bourgeon him .
The story seemed rather full of holes , particularly when more info about Graham came to light . As it turns out , though he ’d been a successful hairstylist , he was not groovy at farming ; he ’d inherit Widden Hill from his don in 1979 , and had dutifully taken over . In the ensuing year he ’d racked up quite a morsel of debt .
He was also not great at being a husband to Margaret , since his womanizing ways were known throughout Horton , the Cotswold village where their farm was located . In fact , prior to blaming Bedale - Taylor for everything , he’d suggested to policethat the threats could have come from an raging married man of one of his conquests .
In the end , he was undone by forensics . First , the wounds he ’d take Bedale - Taylor had slashed into him were prove to be self - inflicted , thanks to a heedful analytic thinking of the ancestry splatterthey exit behind . Then , there was that odd scrabble from the “ You next ” note … which investigator ground drawn inside a notebook stashed in a drawer at Backhouse ’s farmhouse . They also matched a vulcanized fiber that was clinging to an envelope used to ship the “ Came tyce last week ” letter of the alphabet to the serviceman ’s own sweater lint .
The fact that he ’d recentlyincreased Margaret ’s life insurance policyonly seal off the pot :
research worker then pieced together the whole plot : Backhouse had increase his married woman ’s lifespan policy , created the false threats , set the railcar bomb , and then , to avoid detection , couch and kill Bedale - Taylor . In 1985 , Backhouse was convict and sentenced to sprightliness imprisonment .
At his sentencing , the jurist call him a “ devious and repellant mankind . ” In 1994 , he died of a fondness flack while play cricket in prison .
Additional rootage : The Casebook of Forensic Detection : How Science Solved 100 of the World ’s Most Baffling criminal offense
Photo byDavid Martyn Hunt
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