accounts together on Saturday nights.
Sometimes it was 11.30 p.m. before they
sat down to a meal.
Mountstephens said he was not
concerned when Thomas failed to turn
up on the night of the murder as he
often worked into the early hours. He
knew Thomas was having problems with
his cheese stock, and assumed he was
still at the shop.
“But you knew his health wasn’t too
good,” challenged the coroner. “Using
ordinary common sense, didn’t it strike
you, at one a.m., that it was an unusual
hour for him to be out, especially when
one of your other lodgers suggested you
and he go up to the shop together to see
if Thomas was all right? Did you not act
a little callously by not taking an interest
in what might have happened to your
friend?”
Mountstephens refused to be
provoked and merely answered: “I
thought Mr. Thomas would come in.
Then, next morning, I found half his
meal had been eaten and the other half
put back in the oven, so I assumed he
had worked late. I now know one of the
other lodgers ate it.”
The jury had no option but to
return a verdict of wilful murder
against person or persons unknown,
and interest in the case gradually
dwindled. The evidence seemed as
scant as the police investigation.
Today Garnant is better known for
its impressive golf course – built
on land reclaimed from open-cast
mining – than for the brutal murder
of a harmless shopkeeper.l Recommended
further reading:
Murder At The Star –
Who Killed Thomas
Thomas?, by Steve Adams,
Seren Books, £9.99 (ISBN- 978-1-78172-255-8).
Mr. Jefferys said he had been drinking
at the town’s Raven Hotel between eight
and 10 on the evening of the murder,
and they were keen to confirm his alibi.
He had already given police the names
of a few customers in the pub who were
there with him, but jurymen pressed him
for more.
“I’m under no legal obligation to do so
and I cannot,” said Mr. Jefferys. “I have
named quite sufficient.”
The victim’s landlord, Thomas
Mountstephens, said Mr. Thomas
had lodged with him since moving to
Garnant two years ago. He described
him as a person of “regular habits” and
said they often used to work on theof the murder weapons. But he still
had no idea whether Thomas had
known his attacker.
I
n the 1920s, Garnant was on
a busy road and the Amman
Valley was made up of a number of
small towns and villages, including
Ammanford itself. It was also
only 10 miles from Swansea, one
of the busiest ports in the British
Empire. A stranger watching the
shop would probably have gone
unnoticed, especially if he had done
his background work at night. Then
by way of escape he could have taken
the train from Garnant and escaped
to the city.
Many people wondered why
Scotland Yard were not called in
to help the local police, but the
Carmarthenshire force were adamant
they would catch the killer. If he were
local to the valley, he would surely spend
the money or give himself away. The
inquest was therefore delayed a month
until March 8th.
It began with some uncomfortable
questions for Morgan Jefferys when the
jury foreman asked him, as owner of the
shop, why he had not investigated the
lights being on.
“I try not to interfere with my tenants
unless I see there’s danger,” said Mr.
Jefferys. “If the lights had been gas, I
might have checked for safety reasons.
But I had no reason to suspect anything.
“On one occasion a while ago a light
had been left on by mistake and I called
at Mr. Thomas’s lodgings to tell him. But
he was a good shopkeeper who worked
late hours and I wouldn’t ordinarily
bother him unless it was absolutely
necessary.”
The jurors were interested to hear that
Above left, police searching for clues to the murder scene. Above right, a
member of the public points to the spot in the brook where the knife used in
the murder was foundCRIME CAMERACarol Bartholomew gets a helping hand with the dishes from acquaintance,
fellow-guest and serial killer Ted Bundy after a birthday party in Salt Lake
City, Utah, in early 1975. Bundy, one of the US’s most notorious serial
killers, went on to murder at least 30 women. He was executed in 1989.