Carl Bridgewater
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[edit] General Information
Carl Bridgewater (born 1965) was a murder victim in England in the autumn of 1978. In the case, individuals were arrested and convicted but then had their convictions quashed. There has been no legal resolution in the case.
[edit] Background Information
Carl was a thirteen year old newspaper delivery boy and boy scout, from Wordsley, near Stourbridge in the West Midlands, England. He was the son of Brian and Janet Bridgewater. He had only delivered the paper for Davies' newsagents near the centre of Wordsley for two months and was late on his round on the mild autumn afternoon of Tuesday, September 19, 1978, because he had been to the dentist. Nevertheless, he had picked up his bag of Express and Star papers as usual and lost no time delivering them on his yellow bicycle.
Yew Tree Farm, at Prestwood, near Stourbridge, was only two stops away from the end of his round and, at about 4.15 pm, Carl freewheeled down the hill towards it and turned his bike into the track that led to the back door of the farmhouse. The front door, which looked out onto the A449 road between Kidderminster and Wolverhampton, was never used. The occupants of Yew Tree Farm, Fred and Mary Poole, were disabled and hard of hearing and would leave the back door open so that Carl could bring the paper in to them. Unbeknownst to Carl, however, the Pooles were not at home that day and it is believed that as he walked in, he disturbed a burglar or burglars and was then dragged into the living room and shot once through the head with a shotgun.
An hour and a quarter later, at about 5:30 pm, his body was found by Dr Angus MacDonald, who was making a random visit that day to the elderly couple. He found the back door had been kicked open and went into the house to investigate. He found Carl’s body laid out on a settee, with his legs dangling over it and his bag of newspapers still slung over his shoulder. The boy could have been asleep, but for the gunshot wound in the side of his head. The boy’s clothing was not disarranged and there was no evidence to suggest that he had been sexually molested. It was simply a cold blooded and brutal killing. Carl’s bicycle was later found thrown into a nearby hedge. Dr MacDonald called the police and by the time that the Pooles arrived home three hours later, they found their driveway choked with police cars. The couple were too distressed to stay in the house and spent the night at Dr MacDonald’s home.
The murder horrified the nation. Four men, Vincent and Michael Hickey, Jimmy Robinson and Pat Molloy, who became known in the media as the Bridgewater Four, were later arrested and charged with Carl's murder. The two Hickeys and Jimmy Robinson were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1979. Pat Molloy was given twelve years for manslaughter.
These men continually protested their innocence, claiming police had fabricated statements and beaten confessions out of them which led to their conviction. In 1997, the Court of Appeal declared their convictions unsafe. Vincent, Michael and Jimmy walked free, but Pat Molloy, who had died in prison in 1981, was posthumously acquitted.
Carl's real killer has never been caught and the reason for his murder remains as unknown as his murderer. But it may well be that either Carl knew his murderer, who killed him to silence him, or that the murderer had levelled the gun at Carl and it had gone off accidentally. A possible suspect is Hubert Spencer, who was convicted of a shooting murder at a nearby farm a month later.
