Netflix viewers rush to binge haunting series about a horrific unsolved murder

ITV’s two-part documentary about an unsolved murder from 40 years ago is the latest true crime offering to hit the Netflix TV top 10.

The Real Unforgotten – whose title, perhaps unnecessarily, refers to ITV’s hit crime drama – retreads the chilling murder case of Carol Morgan, attempting to mount a fresh investigation into her death. 

The series reveals numerous police blunders in the initial investigation in 1981, when the 36-year-old convenience store owner was found brutally murdered in the stockroom of her shop in Linslade, Bedfordshire.

A killer, who has never been caught, used an axe or machete to attack Carol before stealing £435 in cash and 1,400 cigarettes.

Carol’s husband, Allen, was on a cinema trip with their two children. The documentary details how the police went on the working assumption that this was a robbery gone wrong.

Allen and his mistress, Margaret Spooner, were not formally questioned under caution at the time.

Instead of eyeing up Allen, the police chased down a reported sighting of a man with carrier bags getting into a car – even though Carol was seen alive after this man was spotted in the vicinity. 

Years later in 2018, the case was given a pair of fresh eyes and all the existing evidence re-examined. They were starting on the back foot because all the forensic evidence had somehow gone awry. 

Former Detective Superintendent Carl Foster, who was the senior investigating officer and saw the case through to his retirement, told the BBC it was ‘old-fashioned detective work’ they had to rely on, with the lack of a forensic breakthrough in the offing.

‘Knocking on doors, re-interviewing people and seeing what changed,’ he recalled in a 2025 interview with the Beeb. ‘We always had a really strong circumstantial case, but you need direct evidence.’

So the team started looking into long-unanswered questions, like why did Carol’s husband Allen report the murder to police using a neighbour’s phone when he had his own? What about the life insurance policy linked to their shop? 

And would a legitimately grieving widow sell up shop posthaste and tie the knot with his mistress?

One new piece of evidence ‘blew the case wide open’ – a woman called Jane Bunting, who was a teenager when the murder took place, recalled being asked by Allen if her ex-boyfriend knew anyone who could kill.

She later told Luton Crown Court: ‘He’d say, “I hate Carol”, “I don’t want to be married to her”, “I wish she’d die”, “Wouldn’t an accident be nice?”.’

Cut to 2024, when Allen was found guilty of hiring a hitman to murder his former wife Carol. His current wife Margaret was found not guilty of the same charge.

Allen was jailed for life with a minimum of 22 years. Former Det Supt Foster has since said that he remains hopeful Allen will one day reveal who he hired to kill his wife. 

He said: ‘I feel hugely proud of what the team achieved just through their tenacity and that old-fashioned police work. We just kept grinding away and eventually we got there.

‘What was in my thoughts were Carol’s biological children, who have to come to terms with the fact that the man they called dad murdered their mother… Where do they start putting their lives back together?’

The Real Unforgotten is available to stream on Netflix.

MORE: First look at The Inbetweeners 3 reveals one boy’s wedding – and who the bride is

MORE: Netflix’s true crime horror soars to number 1 despite being labelled ‘ridiculous’

MORE: Big Brother star brands fellow housemate a ‘cow’ after fat-shaming row