The shocking execution-style shooting of an elderly couple and how their daughter stood by a wrongly convicted killer

On a quiet Monday morning on July 26, 1993, Megan and Harry Tooze's only daughter, Cheryl, picked up the phone to her parents' neighbour.

- JESSICA WALFORD

Farmer Owen Hopkins had called to say the couple, who had been out earlier that day to Tesco in Talbot Green to do their weekly food shop and collect their pensions, were missing.

The door to their remote farmhouse, Ty ar y Waun Farm, was unlocked and there was a half-prepared lunch on the couple's best china in the kitchen. Neighbours had heard the sound of shots coming from the area of their home at 1.30pm that day and a relative, who tried to contact the couple by telephone at around 3pm, could get no reply.

The police were called. After searching the property, they found the bodies of 64-year-old greengrocer Harry and 67-year-old Megan in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

They had been shot in the back of the head from close distance, covered in a carpet and stowed in a cowshed under bales of hay. Both victims had been shot in the head with a 12-bore shotgun. The motive, police claimed, was money.

The discovery shocked locals in the area, now fearful a serial killer was on the loose.

At the time, this was a community that had only seen one reported break-in over the last 60 years. Villager Shelagh Rees, who was 61 at the time, lived with her husband Vincent at Gwaun Cottages. She was terrified to leave her home.

“I used to walk through the woods near the farm house to pick bluebells but I won't be going out on my own again until they find the killer,” she said.

Police began to investigate the horrific murder. They revealed the pair were last seen at Llanharry Post Office collecting their pensions.

Despite hundreds of phone calls made to police with people offering information, the killing remained a mystery. But months later, there was a major development.

Cheryl's then boyfriend, Jonathan, with whom she had been living with in Orpington in Kent, was arrested.

Police released a statement saying they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the killings.