A Fantasy to kill

A husband and wife were murdered in a sacrificial-style killing. Their son was the only person with the ability, means and possible motive, but his alibi was watertight. Or so he thought.

In the early hours of December 7th 2004, Detective Chief Superintendent Paul Howlett’s phone started ringing.

Paul was head of Wiltshire Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID). A busy job, but not one which usually meant out-of-hours calls.

‘One thing is certain is that when the phone rings at six in the morning, it's not going to be good news. The on-call CID officer said: ‘we've got a double murder. This looks different. I think you better come. So I got up, got dressed. Jumped in the car and drove from home to Melksham.’

Melksham is, in Paul Howlett’s words’ an ‘unremarkable town’ in the rural county of Wiltshire. The area is better known for its standing stones than its murder rates. Stonehenge and Avebury are short drives away from the small market town with a population of 18,000 usually law-abiding citizens.

Milroy ‘Roy’ Clarke, was 70 and his wife Joan was 56

The husband and wife had been identified as Milroy ‘Roy’ Clarke, 70, and his wife Joan, 56. They were both found upstairs in their house in the quiet district of Berryfield.

They had been found in the early hours by their son, Michael. He was a 20-year-old bank worker who had spent the whole of the previous day 100 miles away at a concert in Wembley, London.

‘Michael came across as a very shocked, somewhat withdrawn,’ said Mr Howlett.

Paul Howlett was learning about his victims.

Roy was a former police constable at Wiltshire. He had served for 28 years, retiring in 1982. He had gone on to work as a driver, a traffic warden and a security officer.

Roy Clarke

Joan had been a childminder and was known as a ‘lovely woman.’ She was 16 years younger than Roy, and was his third wife. She had given birth to Michael in 1984 when Roy was still married to his second wife, Liz.

Joan Clarke

He had maintained the secrecy around his lover and love child for eight years until 1992 when the Child Support Agency demanded more money from him. He had told Liz and their two children Sarah and Andrew, and he had been told to leave the family home.

He had moved to Melksham and married Joan, and lived as a new unit with her and Michael.

The attacks were ritualistic, almost. Roy had been stabbed 17 times. Joan had sixteen wounds. And they seemed to match each other.

‘Very quickly the pathologist was able to establish the cause of death and was able to identify the distinct similarity in terms of the pattern of wounds.’