Charles Walton (murder victim)
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. 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. The case has earned some notoriety in popular culture due to its supposed connection with the local belief in witchcraft.
Joseph Morton (correspondent)
Morton's colleagues from AP and his family had no clue to his whereabouts. The AP maintained strict silence about his disappearance in order to not jeopardize his safety if he had survived. However, London received an alarming news from a German radio that said 17 Anglo-American agents who had been captured in Slovakia had been tried by a military tribunal and executed by shooting on January 24, 1945 that same day. In April 1945, the first information leading to Morton's fate when a German interpreter was captured and interrogated by the OSS. Finally, on June 1945, a month after the liberation of Mauthausen camp by Patton's Third U.S. Army, AP's correspondent and Morton's friend Lynne Hientzerling was allowed to fly to Mauthausen to investigate, including the interview of a Polish prisoner, Wilhelm Ornstein. On July 9, 1945, the investigation by the AP stated that Morton was indeed executed by the Germans on January 24, 1945, and also found that there were no evidence of any trials for Morton and the Dawes men before their execution.