Llangynin, Wales

The first time I visited Wales, I stayed in a farm house where a gruesome murder had taken place. Luckily not while I was there, and hopefully not in the room where I was staying, but a murder all the same! I remember Alison (then my landlady, now a good friend) showing me a book about famous murders in South Wales. The book has gone out of print unfortunately, but a bit of research on the internet dug up the whole story.

Apparently the murder took place in 1953 when 63-year-old John Harries and his 54-year-old wife Phoebe mysteriously disappeared from Derlwyn Farm, Llangynin (near St. Clears, carmartenshire). According to their nephew Ronnie Harries they were staying at his parents’ place, Cadno Farm, but later he told the police they had moved to London.

The police treated their disappearance with suspicion, especially after finding Derlwyn farm in a mess and uncooked food in the stove. They searched Cadno Farm (where Ronnie Harries lived) and found the resting place of John and Phoebe Harries who had been beaten to death with a hammer, a hammer that Harries had borrowed from a neighbour only two days earlier.

Despite Ronnie protesting his innocence till the end, he was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to death in Swansea Prison.