A Sheep's Head, A Car Bomb, and False Accusations

Margaret and Graham Backhouse

A detective displays the notes that Graham Backhouse tried to implicate his neighbor with.

April 9, 1984, started out as an ordinary day for Margaret Backhouse, a resident of the rural farming community of Horton, England. That day, she intended to go into town to run errands. It didn't strike her as unusual when her husband, Graham, insisted that she take his station wagon. After all, she needed the cargo space as she would be bringing back supplies for the family farm. However, Margaret Backhouse's day turned into a waking nightmare as soon as she started the car. It turns out that Graham's station wagon contained a pipe bomb filled with nitroglycerine and shotgun pellets. The pellets were so numerous that they nearly tore Margaret's legs away. While the damage to her legs was severe, most of the bomb's force was deflected away from Martha, and she was taken to the hospital by some neighbors who happened to be passing by. Although Margaret survived the car bombing, the incident would lead to even greater tragedy.

Graham Backhouse inherited Widden Hill, a sheep farm in the English village of Horton, in 1979 after his father passed away. Before taking over the farm, he had been a hairdresser, and as time would tell, he probably should have stuck with that career. As police began to investigate the car bombing, they learned that the Backhouse family had been receiving threatening messages for some time. One particularly gruesome threat involved a severed sheep's head impaled on their fence with a note that read, "You're next." On the morning of the car bombing, they found another note that read, "Came tyce last week but the pigs were about see you soon." Graham Backhouse told investigators that he suspected a neighbor, Colyn Bedale-Taylor, was behind the threats. He and the Backhouses were engaged in a dispute over property lines, and the quarrel had only gotten worse after the death of Bedale-Taylor's son.

Over the course of the investigation, Graham Backhouse admitted that he had engaged in multiple affairs with local women. He speculated that one of these jealous and possessive women, or perhaps an angry husband, could be behind the threats and the car bombing. Despite all of his perceived enemies and the attempted murder of his wife, Graham Backhouse turned down the offer of police protection. When police interviewed some of the women that Backhouse claimed he had slept with, they denied any involvement with him.

Things would finally come to a head on April 30, 1984, when police were once again called to Widden Hill. Upon arrival, they found Graham Backhouse, his chest and face covered in cuts, standing over the body Colyn Bedale-Taylor. The deceased Bedale-Taylor had received two gunshots to the chest. Backhouse told the police that Bedale-Taylor had burst into his home and attacked him with the Stanley knife that the dead man still had in his hand. However, the evidence at the scene did not match Backhouse's account. Also, when police tried to link the knife to Bedale-Taylor, they noticed that "CBD" had been etched into the handle. As a craftsman, Bedale-Taylor owned over 500 tools, and none of them had his initials etched into them. Finally, investigators found a doodle drawn by Graham Backhouse that matched an impression found on the back of the note attached to the sheep's head.

On May 13, 1984, 44-year-old Graham Backhouse was arrested for murder and attempted murder. He confessed that after taking over the farm, he had accumulated a debt of 70,000 pounds ($80,000). His solution was to take out an insurance policy worth 100,000 pounds on his wife Margaret and then kill her with the car bomb. Before the day of the bombing, he planted the threatening notes as part of an elaborate scheme to misdirect the police. After the bombing, he murdered Colyn Bedale-Taylor and told the police that the dead man had confessed to the attempt on Margaret's life.

For his crimes, Graham Backhouse was sentenced to life in prison. In June 1994, he was playing a game of cricket on the grounds of Grendon Underwood Prison when he had a fatal heart attack. Backhouse was 53 at the time of his passing. It was later revealed that he had struck up a relationship with a convicted con artist by the name of Rosemary Aberdour. They were even engaged to be married.

Margaret Backhouse passed away in her sleep in March 1995 at the age of 48. She left behind two teenaged children.

Related Reading:

How A Note Attached To A Severed Sheep's Head Helped Solve A Murder

Answers In Blood

Doodles, Drolplets, and Cardigan Sweaters