TOOZE MURDERS: Man, 87, arrested over 1993 farmhouse killings will face no further action

The man arrested last December over the 1993 murders of Harry and Megan Tooze has been told he is no longer under investigation.

South Wales Police says the 87-year-old has been released with no further action, after detectives carrying out a forensic review of the case went back over the evidence.

The review, led by the force’s Major Crime Investigation Team, continues.

‘It is never too late to come forward’

Detective Superintendent Mark O’Shea said: “We remain committed to solving these dreadful murders which happened more than three decades ago.”

“It is never too late to come forward. Even with this passage of time I appeal to anyone who has any information about the murders to come forward and speak to us, because information they have may help us get justice for the family,” he said.

The force says the couple’s next of kin are being supported and kept regularly updated.

Shot at their farm in 1993

Harry Tooze, 64, and his wife Megan, 67, were found shot dead at their farmhouse in Llanharry on 26 July 1993.

Both had been shot in the back of the head with a shotgun. Their bodies were found hidden under hay bales in a cowshed beside the house.

A man was convicted of their murders in 1995 and jailed for life, but the Court of Appeal freed him the following year. A reinvestigation from 2001 led to no charges.

The forensic review

The current review began in 2023, on the 30th anniversary of the killings, with forensic scientist Dr Angela Gallop examining exhibits to see whether modern techniques could produce new evidence.

Last December an 86-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder. Det Supt Mark Lewis, then the senior investigating officer, called it “a significant development in the investigation” and said enquiries were “very much ongoing”.

That man, now 87, is the one released today. The force has not named him, and he has not been charged with any offence.

It is one of several decades-old cases South Wales Police has reopened. Detectives launched a new forensic review into the 1985 murder of Sandra Phillips in Swansea last September.

In January they renewed the appeal over Cardiff taxi driver Jack Armstrong, whose blood-stained cab was found abandoned in Bridgend in 1979.

Anyone with information about the Tooze murders can contact the force through its Major Incident Public Portal, or call 999 in an emergency.