Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: Who murdered Charles Walton on 14 February 1945?
Charles Walton (1870–1945) was found murdered on the evening of 14 February 1945, (St Valentine’s Day), at The Firs farm on the slopes of Meon Hill, Lower Quinton in Warwickshire, England.[1] The case is notable as the foremost police detective of the era, Chief Inspector Robert Fabian, led the investigation into Walton's death. The chief suspect for the murder was the manager of The Firs, Alfred John Potter, for whom Walton was working on the day he died. However, there was insufficient evidence to convict Potter and the case is currently the oldest unsolved murder in the Warwickshire Constabulary records.[2] The case has earned some notoriety in popular culture due to its supposed connection with the local belief in witchcraft.
The lighthouse is known as Walton Lighthouse because Charles Walton, a local businessman, contributed a significant part of the construction cost in memory of his late brother Derek Walton, who was a merchant seaman. The Walton lighthouse was built in 2001 with donations including $60,000 from Charles Walton.
Joseph Stanley confirmed that Potter had assisted him with the castration of two calves on the morning of 14 February and that they had subsequently visited the College Arms where Potter had drunk two glasses of Guinness between 11.45am and noon.[4]
Charles Walton, born 12 May 1870, was a 74-year-old agricultural worker who had lived in Lower Quinton all his life.[3] He was a widower who shared a small cottage, 15 Lower Quinton, with his thirty-three-year-old niece, Edith Isabel Walton, whom he had adopted thirty years previously upon the death of her mother.[4] Walton was described as something of a loner who had earned a reputation as a trainer of horses in his youth. It is said that he did not socialise with his neighbours but that he was far from being disliked.
Fabian's investigations also revealed that Walton's best friend was seventy-two-year-old George Higgins of Fairview, Lower Quinton, although the pair had not seen each other since the previous Christmas. Higgins was employed by Mr Valender of Upper Quinton and at the time of the murder had been working in a barn just 300yards from Walton. Fabian speculated that Higgins could have made his way across the fields unseen and killed Walton. However, he doubted that the old man would have had the strength to mount such an attack or sufficient motive.[4]
Eventually Fabian and Webb returned to London while Detective Superintendent Alex Spooner continued to search for the murderer. The murder so fascinated Spooner that it is claimed he continued to return to the village long after the rest of the world had concluded that the perpetrator would never be found. There were reports that Walton’s pocket watch was found in the outhouse of his cottage in 1960, despite an extensive search by the police at the time of the murder.[6]
Charles W. Walton (November 13, 1875 in Olive Branch, Ulster County, New York – March 19, 1945) was an American lawyer and politician from New York.
The claims that Ann was pinned to the ground with a pitchfork or slashed with a bill-hook are pure invention. She was attacked in the view of several witnesses and the only similarity with Walton's murder was the fact that a pitchfork was used in both instances.[5]
Charles Walton had a first cousin, twice removed, named John Haynes. In December 1867, John Haynes married Sarah Cook whose first cousin, once removed, was Elizabeth Clifton, the wife of Joseph Tennant, Ann Tennant's eldest son.
On 16 February Chief Inspector Robert Fabian and his partner, Detective Sergeant Albert Webb arrived to assist the investigation. Later that day, Detective Sergeant Saunders of Special Branch, who was a fluent Italian speaker, also arrived.
On 17 February, Potter was interviewed for a second time, on this occasion by Detective Sergeant Webb. Potter stated that Walton had usually worked about four days each week, but never in wet weather. Potter stated that he paid him eighteen pence per hour and usually at the end of each fortnight, although sometimes by the week. He said that he left it to Walton to say how many hours he had completed and implied that Walton was sometimes paid for hours he had not actually worked. He had last paid Walton for the fortnight ending 10 February when he had given him £2.15s.0.[4]
Alternatively, the police may have believed there was a closer connection: Charles Walton’s great-grandparents were Thomas Walton and Ann Smith. Ann Smith was Ann Tennant’s maiden name and she was born in 1794. It is feasible that it was she who married Thomas Walton on 2 January 1812 in Ebrington, Gloucestershire, when she would have been 17 or 18. She could then have given birth to William Walton, the victim’s grandfather, in 1814 and, assuming that her husband subsequently died, could have married John Tennant in April 1819 in Long Compton. If this tenuous possibility were to be proved true, Ann Tennant was Charles Walton’s great-grandmother.
The two reports that Fabian wrote on the case in 1945 and which are preserved on the police file make no mention of witchcraft, ritualistic killing, black dogs, natterjack toads or blood sacrifices. However, twenty-five years later he wrote the following:
At 11pm on 14 February, Detective Inspector Tombs took a statement from Alfred Potter. Potter stated that he had been at the farm for about five years and had known Walton for all that time. He had employed Walton casually for the last nine months and that Walton had worked when the weather permitted. Walton had been engaged on hedging for the previous few months and Hillground was the last field needing attention.[4]
The decision to request assistance from the Metropolitan Police (colloquially, "Scotland Yard") was made at an early stage. The Deputy Chief Constable of Warwickshire sent a message on 15 February which stated:
On 27 February, Fabian asked that enquiries be made of Stubbs& Bradstreet about any debts recorded against Alfred Potter or L. L. Potter& Co., Farmers of Campden, Gloucestershire. (Alfred Potter's father, Levi Potter, was the licensee of the Lygon Arms in Chipping Campden.) Subsequently it was confirmed that there were no such debts. Fabian also asked for enquiries to be made at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries about the result of a "test wages investigation made on 12 January 1945 at Firs Farm by Inspector R. G. Elliott" who was apparently reluctant to reveal the information to Fabian without authority from his Headquarters.[4]
When Harry Beasley was interviewed he told the police that he was employed by Harry Ball of Henney's Farm in the village. He said that "Potter had a reputation as a decent man to work for". On the night of 14 February he recalled Potter saying of Walton, "I saw him at work at 12.15". Beasley also confirmed that Edith Walton had been going out with one Edgar Goode for some years, although Goode was later eliminated from the police enquiries. Beasley said he was confident that Potter realised Walton was dead from the moment he saw Walton's body.[4]
Charles Frederick Peace (14 May 1832 – 25 February 1879) was an English burglar and murderer, who embarked on a life of crime after being maimed in an industrial accident as a boy. 
Potter stated that he knew that it was Walton's habit to stop for lunch at around 11am and that he would then work continuously until about 4pm. He described Walton as an "inoffensive type of man but one who would speak his mind if necessary".[4]
On 14 February 1945 Walton left home with a pitchfork and a slash hook– a double-edged pruning implement with a sharpened straight edge on one side and concave cutting edge on the other. Edith stated that Walton had left his purse at home on 14 February.[4] He was witnessesed to have passed through the churchyard between 9am and 9.30am.[4] On this particular day, he was slashing hedges in a field known as Hillground on the slopes of Meon Hill.[5]
Again, in his initial crime report, Fabian recorded that, at the inquest on Charles Walton on 20 March, Potter had told the Coroner that he had seen someone in shirtsleeves in his field at 12.30pm and that they were stationary.
On 13 February 1954, the eve of the ninth anniversary of Walton’s murder, the Daily Mirror revisited the killing of Ann Tennant and alleged similarity between that event and Walton's murder. The report stated: "The police have found one other link between the killings, but I am pledged not to reveal it."[10] One possible explanation was that the police had discovered that Charles Walton and Ann Tennant were related.
Edith Walton had lived with Charles Walton since she was three years old, although her father was still alive and lived at 30 Henley Street, Stratford. Walton had occupied his cottage since World War I and his wife had died on 9 December 1927. Walton had given Edith £1 per week housekeeping, but also paid the 3s. per week rent on the cottage, as well as buying their coal and meat. In addition to his casual earnings, Walton received 10s. a week old age pension.[4]
It was claimed that locals believed that Walton was a witch whose powers were feared by some villagers. It was claimed he could cast the evil eye and kept natterjack toads as pets and used them to "blast"(blight) the crops and livestock of local farmers. Two examples cited were the failure of the 1944 harvest and the death of Potter's heifer on 13 February. It was claimed that this alleged witchcraft led him to be murdered in a ritualistic manner which involved his blood soaking into the ground to ‘replenish the soil's fertility’.[6] Local folklore held that phantom black dogs roamed the area and were a harbinger of death.[7] It was claimed that, soon after Walton's murder, a black dog was found hanging from a tree close to the murder scene. Fabian wrote that he encountered a black dog while walking at dusk on Meon Hill. The story he related was that dog ran past him and shortly afterwards he met a local boy walking in the same direction. He asked the boy if he was looking for his dog, but when Fabian mentioned the animal's colour, the boy turned a deathly pale and fled in the opposite direction.
I advise anybody who is tempted at any time to venture into Black Magic, witchcraft, Shamanism– call it what you will– to remember Charles Walton and to think of his death, which was clearly the ghastly climax of a pagan rite. There is no stronger argument for keeping as far away as possible from the villains with their swords, incense and mumbo-jumbo. It is prudence on which your future peace of mind and even your life could depend.[11]