A cup of tea with an old flame changed Carol's life forever…
Sometimes it's a particular scent or, it can be the line of a song, but in Carol Hay's case it was a name that evoked powerful memories of her past. She'd been chatting to friends at a party when someone mentioned Kenneth Bill.
Ken Bill, she thought, now there was a name….
Its mere mention transported Carol, 62, back to her own roaring 20s, when Boney M was playing on the juke box and even the men had platforms and perms. Then a young, curvy Carol wanted to marry fun-loving, generous Ken, whom she had dated for five years.
But as so often happens, young love's bubble burst and the passion fizzled. In 1974, Carol married John Hay instead.
Now she and former policeman, John, from Fenay Bridge, West Yorkshire, were proud grandparents, and in a few years would be celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary.
She was happy with John, 61, now a builder, but hearing Ken's name awakened all those memories of her vibrant youth. So, when a friend gave her his details, back home Carol found herself writing to the 63-year-old, suggesting they meet for a cuppa - 'for old times' sake'.
Still blonde and sexy, Carol met Ken, now grey-haired and with a healthy tan, at Sainsbury's café. It was hardly the most romantic venue.
Over their cup of tea, Carol discovered that Ken, a father-of-three, had split up from his wife five years earlier and that, according to his smooth patter, he'd never stopped loving Carol and wished they had never split-up!
Ken had held a torch for Carol for 40 years. Who wouldn't be flattered?
Soon Carol was lapping up the businessman's attention, and met Ken again and again. Compared with the safety of her long marriage, this contact with Ken was exciting. When he invited her to his detached house in the picturesque village of Holmfirth 'to see his animals', Carol let the friendship become an affair.
Ken, who owned a drilling company, then gave her a mobile phone, so they could keep in touch without John finding out. He told her he was 'nuts' about her, suggesting he should rent a bungalow for her to use as a 'bolthole' if she ever had to leave home.
Later, Carol said, 'He kept telling me that he could give me a better life and I should leave John, because he was just using me as a housekeeper, which wasn't true.'
More used to the role of loyal wife, mum and grandmother, it wasn’t long before Carol came to her senses. Realising that a double life wasn't for her, she tried to end the affair.
But it wasn’t so easy. Smooth-talking Ken charmed and cajoled her, at first trying to persuade her that their relationship could be platonic. But then he revealed another solution.
During one of their supermarket rendezvous, he passed Carol a typed letter addressed to John proposing that they share her!
‘I am writing to tell you that Carol and I have been seeing each other since last October…I hope you will be able to let her carry on seeing me occasionally as I am sure this will give her the best of both worlds…’
Carol read the letter and was incredulous. 'Are you having a laugh?' she asked him, before taking the letter home where she promptly shredded it. She knew things had gone far too far and had no intention of leaving John.
Instead she repeatedly tried to end things with Ken, who was now unnerving her by becoming more intense than ever. In one text he wrote, ‘If I can't have you there are three things I could do: kill myself, kill John or tell John all about us.’
What on earth had Carol got herself into?
When she refused to answer Ken's calls, he arrived at her daughter's home - even sending a letter to her house with SWALK (‘sealed with a loving kiss’) written on the back of the envelope, as if they were still in the 1970s!
Cheating Carol was learning the hard way that rekindling an old flame could mean getting your fingers badly burnt.
Finally, four moths after the start of their relationship, Carol called time, telling Ken it was over.
To her surprise and relief, Ken took the news remarkably well, enabling them to part on good terms. Inside, however, this proud and obsessive man was seething. He'd lost Carol once; losing her twice was unacceptable. He had to get rid of the one obstacle in his way - her husband, John.
So, while Carol believed she had managed to get out of the affair and got off lightly, Ken began to hatch an elaborate plan to lure John Hay to his death. His arrangements were meticulous. If everything went to plan, it would look like suicide - and the love of his life would finally be his.
Ken spoke to his colleague Dean Blamires about his plan to push 'the husband' down a steep staircase and then getting rid of him in a barrel of sulphuric acid. He then said that his 'Plan B' was to take the body to the Humber Bridge to make it look like suicide.
Dean had known Ken for 20 years and was only half listening as he droned on. Thinking it was just pub talk, he told Ken he was being ridiculous. But at times, Dean found Ken’s behaviour around this time almost comical. He told his friend that on one occasion to disguise his voice while leaving an answerphone message, he had taken out his false teeth and put marbles in his mouth!
But the comedy turned very black, when it emerged that his farcical behaviour was all part of a calculated murder plan…
John Hay was a devoted grandfather and described by his friends as a 'gentle giant'. He had no idea his wife's old boyfriend, whom he had never met, was back on the scene.
One morning, he took a call from a new customer called Eric Johnston, who asked him to come to an industrial unit in Meltham Mills, near Huddersfield, to look at undertaking some building work.
After dropping his granddaughter at school, John headed off in his van to meet the new client.
But Eric Johnston didn't exist. The man who was waiting for him was Kenneth Bill….
No one knows what was said, or if John realised this man was his wife's ex lover. But at some stage Ken knocked John down a flight of steep metal stairs, before beating him to death. He then bundled John's body into a builder's bag, dragged it into a horsebox and drove to some land near his home. There, hoping to erase all trace of his crime, he put the body on a pre-prepared bonfire, where it burned for three days. Then he put the remains in bin bags and dumped them at a council tip.
Following the plan he'd discussed in the pub, he drove John's van to the Humber Bridge 70 miles away, to make it look like suicide. Ken knew that John's mother had been very ill and he reckoned the suicide would look like the action of a distraught man.
Having obliterated his rival, Ken now truly believed that nothing stood between him and Carol…
Meanwhile, Carol and her family were increasingly worried about John, and she reported him missing, and their son, John, repeatedly rang John’s mobile and drove around the area, looking for his dad's white van.
Then, playing back the answerphone, Carol found a message for John that had been left two days earlier by ‘Eric Johnston’. Her heart missed a beat; she recognised Ken’s badly disguised voice. Desperate, she sent him a text: ‘For God's sake…if you care about me at all you will tell me where he is. I'm begging you. My children are in bits.’
But Ken’s cold reply said she was accusing an innocent man.
Meanwhile, Carol confessed her affair and her suspicions to the police and Ken was arrested. Under questioning, he repeatedly lied to the police, initially claiming he'd never met John Hay, then changing his story, saying his victim had accidentally fallen down stairs and hit his head.
But his plans to commit the perfect murder were soon thwarted…
Police found notes of his murder plan at his home and analysed his computer - revealing searches for the Humber Bridge as well as for sulphuric and nitric acid. Further forensic investigations revealed John's remains - or their gruesome leftovers - in the form of a tooth and some foot bones.
At the three-week trial at Bradford Crown court in September 2012, Ken denied murder, claiming that John had attacked him, and then collapsed during a struggle. But he admitted burning and disposing of John's body.
The jury wasn't fooled and delivered a unanimous verdict of guilty to murder.
As he was sentenced to life, with a minimum of 22 years, Ken showed no emotion. Judge Peter Benson told the packed courtroom: 'It seems to me that you were obsessed with Mrs Hay, and ruthlessly, and in a detailed way, carried out this murder.'
He described John Hay as a hard-working family man; a loving husband, father and grandfather, saying: 'That man you had never met. He had done you not the slightest scrap of harm.'
The judge told the court that Carol Hay should not feel guilty, because she could never have thought a 63-year-old man of previous good character would behave in that way. He said: 'She must not, in any way, blame herself for that.'
After the trial, Carol said: 'I am so relieved that justice has been done and Ken Bill has been found guilty of this horrific crime. Not only has he wrecked the lives of my family, robbing us of a most wonderful husband, father and granddad, he has also surely devastated his own family's lives.'
Kenneth Bill was a blast from Carol's past, who came back into her life - and destroyed it.
END