Murder in Ribble Valley

Summary
In this episode, Cherry and Morgan discuss the mysterious case of Jim Dawson, a farmer who was shot and later died from his injuries. The investigation takes a turn when it is discovered that the bullet was homemade and likely shot from a catapult. The locals in the small village of Bashall Eves are reluctant to talk about the case, leading to various theories, including mistaken identity and a jealous husband. The case remains unsolved, and the village continues to keep silent about the events. The murder of Jim Dawson remains unsolved after over 80 years. The conversation explores various theories and speculations surrounding the case. One theory suggests that Jim may have been mistaken for someone else, possibly Tommy Simpson, who had a conflict with another person named Tommy. The conversation also discusses the possibility of a youth being involved in the shooting, with Jim possibly knowing the identity of the culprit. The villagers' refusal to talk about the murder suggests that they may be protecting someone, possibly a child who made a terrible mistake. The conversation concludes with a discussion about a dumb criminal who taped fish to ATMs in Utah.

Takeaways

• CrimeCon London is an immersive true crime experience featuring sessions with renowned experts.
• Jim Dawson, a farmer, was shot and later died from his injuries in the small village of Bashall Eves.
• The bullet was homemade and likely shot from a catapult, leading to theories of mistaken identity and a jealous husband.
• The locals in Bashall Eves are reluctant to talk about the case, adding to the mystery surrounding Jim Dawson's death.

Chapters00:00 Introduction and CrimeCon London
03:30 Unusual Case: The Murder Witness
07:57 The Location: Bashall Eves
09:08 Jim Dawson's Last Night
12:22 The Mysterious Shooting
19:16 The Unusual Bullet
22:48 Jim Dawson's Death
25:23 Theories and Locals' Silence
38:33 The Mystery of the Dog
39:58 Speculations on the Culprit
41:27 Tommy Kenyon's Theory
42:20 Protecting the Culprit
43:19 Jim's Knowledge of the Culprit
44:21 No Enemies, No Issues
45:16 A Prank Gone Wrong
46:38 The Target Practice Connection
48:31 Protecting the Culprit
49:19 The Culprit's Identity
50:27 Unsolved Mystery
51:56 Interest in the Case
52:53 Dumb Criminal: The Fish Bandit

Music: The Day After Tomorrow by Sascha Ende
Website: https://filmmusic.io/song/412-the-day-after-tomorrow
Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license



Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/crimepedia--5894684/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:37):
Welcome to crime Pedia podcast. I'myour host Cherry this week and with me
as always is my BFF. Itis a lovely Morgan. Hello Cherry,
how are you? I am great? Thank you. I have just booked
my accommodation for crime Con London twentytwenty four. Ooh, very very exciting.

(00:57):
Tell everybody when is that okay?So, if you've never been a
crime con is an immersive experience whereyou can have some fantastic sessions with some
of the biggest names in true crime. We're talking about sitting at the bar
next to somebody like Paul Holes.If you're American, you'll know who that
man is. If you fancy sittingthere to Colin Sutton in the lobby,

(01:18):
you probably will find yourself sharing alift with either him or somebody else who's
massive in true crime. We havegot the most amazing two days for you
of brilliant like all we've got whenwe've got immersive stuff where you can go
and take part. They have policedogs and they show you how police dogs
sniff out drugs, and they havepsychologists. We have criminologists. We have

(01:41):
doctors, we have coroners, wehave police, we have all sorts of
people to give you a real insightinto what the world of true crime is
all about, to be honest,and it's on the twenty first and twenty
second of September in London. Youcan find out all the details you need
on the website which is crimecnt codot uk. You can book your tickets
through there. There's loads of differenttypes you have to pay for it all

(02:04):
in one go. You can doit in sections. It makes a brilliant
present if you've got somebody who lovestrue crime and you want to give them
a present, you can do giftin stuff. If you're a student,
you get discounts. If you're BlueLight cardholder, you get discounts. You
can also get a discount by usingour code. So our code is crime
Pedia. You can put that inthe in the sort of basket at the

(02:24):
end when you're filling everything out topay. If you put crime Pedia in
as the code, you'll get tenpercent discount off as well. So make
sure if you are a massive fanof true crime or very interested in true
crime, it's something you don't wantto miss now. It is a great
time. I've been the word topast two years. Lots of fun so

(02:45):
I would definitely suggest if you havethe ability to make it, definitely do
so. Yeah, I don't thinkyou'll find anything else like it, particularly
not in the UK. There's nothingelse like it. It's absolutely brilliant.
It's really really good. We can'trecommend it enough to you. Will also
be in Arkansas this year at TrueCrime Fest. That's in the beginning first
weekend in August, So if youcan't meet us here in London, then

(03:08):
you can come and see us inArkansas, Northwest Arkansas, And there's lots
of details about that on Allthlostgirls dotOrg, so make sure you are part
of that. And I know thatsome of our patreons are coming to Northwest
Arkansas to see us. So I'mexcited to meet you guys in person.
I can't wait. So it's goingto be great, exciting, exciting.

(03:29):
I'm excited. I can't wait.I'm really excited. I'm excited to bring
you this week's case. This week'scase is really really different. This week's
case the witness and is actually themurder victim. What I know, it's
a very rare case, a veryvery rare case. All the evidence and

(03:49):
everything is handed over by the actualmurder victim. So this is the murder
in Ribel Valley. It's very unusualto have a murder victim talk you through
their murder, and this week's caseis extremely rare. A farmer shot on

(04:12):
his way home from the pub isable to talk police through exactly what happened
and even take them to the crimescene himself. But he's the only one
who is talking to police about thecrime. The local people have all closed
ranks, and to this day,over eighty six years later, people still
refuse to discuss the murder. Thisis crime Pedia and this is murder in
Ribel Valley, Okay Morgan. So, on March the eighteenth, nineteen thirty

(04:38):
eight, a forty six year oldfarmer called James Dawson who was known locally
as Jim's. That's not going tocall him Jim Dawson. He was drinking
his local pub, which is apub called the Edisford Arms. This was
after work. It was in thecute village of bashl Eves. Bashl Eves
is a I mean tiny, tinylittle village in the Ribel Valley district of
Lancashire. I looked up the concentcensus and on the twenty first of March

(05:01):
twenty twenty one, the population onthe census was listed as one hundred and
seventy four. So you can seehow small this tiny little village is.
It's tiny, that is tiny.It's a really small village. So this
is a kind of village where everybodyknows everybody else. You know that the
house to the left of the bigoak tree is mister and missus Jones,

(05:24):
and you know that the person thatlives outside the white fence is mister and
missus Brown, and everybody knows whoeverybody is. The pub was kind of
like a traditional English pub, thelocal pub where everybody would go, and
it's now known as Edisford Bridge CountryPub. It's a beautiful old English pub,
what I would call a traditional Englishpub. There are dark wood beams

(05:47):
across the ceilings, the chairs arelike burgundy with dark wood. There's a
beautiful wooden bar. The lights areall that like kind of orangey glow,
like the kind of thing that youwould traditionally, I think associate with English
pubs, a proper English pub,And it's still very much the same now,

(06:11):
and this entire place that looks likereally just locals, right so of
those one hundred and twenty four,you know what we're saying, ninety are
the people going in that one seventyfour? I would think so, I
would think. So it's a cutelittle local. It's not really tiny,
but it is what I would calla cute English pub, a traditional pub.

(06:31):
There's none of your like Weatherspoon's partabout it, or there's none of
your like beautiful you know, likemarble sideboards and glass tables. It's proper
olding is you know that somewhere inthere is going to be a big old
fireplace and in the winter it's goingto be cozy and warm, and you'll
be able to go in and playlike pub games and things like that.
It's just one of those pubs thatI love. I absolutely love about England

(06:54):
is our old English pubs. Ilooked on trip Advisor to see, no,
no, it's a pub. It'sa pub. It's a properly what
it looks like. Yeah, butit looks like a house, like it
looks like someone could live there.It's not like, oh yeah, a
fancy yeah, like a fan abar. Yeah yeah, it's not a
bar. So it's looking on tripAdvisor, I had to look on trip

(07:16):
Advisor to see what it's like now, and it's exactly the same. I
think it is traditional. It haslike traditional pub food, so you get
like your pies, your chips,your fish and chips, your like roast
on a Sunday, that kind ofthing, like beamed ceilings. Just perfect.
And I think it wouldn't be verymuch different back in nineteen thirty eight.
I think it would be very verysimilar. And I reckon, you've

(07:39):
probably still got generations of the samefamilies drinking in those pubs now, I
would say absolutely yeah. So ourour person, Jim Dawson. He lived
with his sisters Lily and Polly andPolly's son Albert, in the village.
He arrived at the pub about quarterpart seven in the evening. He was

(08:01):
drinking gin and drinking beer, andaround nine pm he put his coat on
and decided to brave the weather togo home. Now home was Baschel Farm
Hall. I've looked here on theon the map. You could just go
onto Google Maps, which is whatI did. I had a look and
I think that Bassel Hall Farm isnow a wedding venue called Bassel Barn.

(08:22):
It's about a mile away from thepub. Now we know that he traveled
up back Lane and that leads offof the road that goes from the pub
up towards what I can see asbachel Farm Hall. And when I when
I googled it and then did thetimeline such it says it takes about twenty
minutes to walk from the pub tohis home. There is another pub,

(08:43):
there is another farm in between thatit could have been called Cheetle Farm,
but he wouldn't have had to goup back Lane to get to Cheetle Farm.
So that's why I think when we'relooking at it now, it's now
up and I think now it's it'sa wedding venue, which would make sense
because we do have that kind ofthing now in England where they've turned old
farms and farm barn buildings into weddingvenue, so that would wouldn't be a

(09:05):
surprise. But I'm not one hundredpercent on that, but that's what I've
looked at and that's how I've workedit out with the amount of time he
would take walking. So as hewas traveling back up the lane, he
leaves the pub as you can see. If you've got this on your if
you've got this on your screen.He leaves the pub and he walks all
the way up and then he turnsslightly right onto back lane. Now,

(09:26):
when I'm saying these are lanes,they are single track roads. They are
like hedgerows. Either side are farmsand there are fields either side. This
is not like a road where you'vegot houses either side, like leading all
the way through. It's literally inthe middle of nowhere. It would be
pitch black at night. You wouldn'tbe able to see him unless your lights

(09:50):
from a car or a motorcycle willlit him up or a tractor lit him
up. There would be he wouldbe doing this all the time. He
would know exactly where he's going inthe middle of nowhere. It's just one
of those things. That's how itwould be. It doesn't sound very good,
but in the country, that's whatit's like. Here. It's a
single track road and you don't havelamp posts there. There are some lamp

(10:13):
posts. There were some lamp postsup there, but very very few and
far between. So there were afew, but they didn't light the whole
way up. As he was travelingup back lane, he noticed a man
or a male i should say,leaning up against one of those lamp posts.
Now, as a car approached him, the headlights lit this man up
completely. There were two vehicles thatpassed him that evening. The first car

(10:35):
had three occupants in it, oneof which was a guy called Tommy Kenyan.
Now Tommy Kenyan was Jim's farm handthat worked on his farm, so
he recognized Tommy knew who he was, but didn't know the other occupants of
the vehicle. The second vehicle passed, but he didn't know who was in
that one. When both cars passedas he was walking, he realized that

(10:56):
the man in the gateway next tothe lamp post of the farm that he
walked past had actually gone. Theweather was really really windy. It was
bad weather. It was raining.He had pulled his coat close around him,
and he says that he remembers hearinga click and then a stinging sensation
in his shoulder. He thought itwas just people messing around, you know,

(11:18):
somebody throwing a stone at him,somebody being silly, and he pulled
his coat background him. After havingquite a bit to drink, he didn't
really think much of the stinging onhis shoulder. I just carried on.
So when he got home. Heate quite a big meal of roast pork
that was made by his sister.He went to bed at around twenty to
ten. Is reported a few hourslater he woke up complaining of stiffness in

(11:41):
his left arm. In his leftarm, now, Tommy, who he
had passed in the car earlier onthat night, had gone to a different
pub, so he and two otheroccupants of the car didn't go to the
same pub that the gym was in. The He went to a different pub
and he came home and he remembersseeing Jim sat in a chair by the

(12:01):
fire. He said, nobody elsewas up. Jim was just sat in
the chair. They exchanged like pleasantriesto chatted to each other. Nobody was
there's nothing untoward going on. Andthen Tommy went to bed, and we
think that Jim went back up tobed as well. When Jim went back
up to his bed, he noticedthat his sheets were covered in blood,

(12:22):
and so he was a bit surprisedby this and was like, what's going
on. He didn't want to rakethe rest of the household up, so
he kept quiet about this until abouteight am, when his shoulder was very
painful. He called his sister Lilyto come and check on it for him,
and she discovered, her horror thathe had what looked like a large
gunshot wound to his shoulder, wella large grind wound. Yeah, And

(12:48):
he's not thinking it's a big deal. No, He's like that, everything's
fine. So they called the doctorout. A doctor came out, as
obviously we're talking nineteen thirty. Sothe doctor came out and he dam and
Jim and he demanded that Jim goto the hospital. Jim really didn't want
to go. He was like,look, I'm fine, everything's fine.
Just patched me up, I'm fine. He was really reluctant, but Lily

(13:09):
eventually convinced him to go to thehospital, which he did. They went
to see a private radiologist. NowI don't know how I don't know how
normal this was back in the dayto go to a private radiologist, because
I would have thought he would havegone to the local hospital. And I've
read different reports on this. Onereport that I read, or quite a
few of the reports I read,said that he went to hospital. Other

(13:31):
reports that I've read say he wentto this private radiologist and gave the address.
But there's more reports to say thathe went to hospital. When he
was in hospital, they discovered thathe had what they described as an egg
shaped bullet lodged in Jim's shoulder.Jim told them that he looked. He

(13:52):
didn't want to fuss. It's nota problem. It wasn't causing him that
much pain. He was fine.He refused surgery, despite them saying he
needed surgery, and then he refusedto get the police involved. Now,
obviously, as we know nowadays,living with a foreign object in your body
isn't the best idea. But Jim'srationality with this was to argue that there
were plenty of war veterans that wereliving with shrapnel buried in their legs and

(14:16):
in their backs and their arms andstuff, and they were absolutely fine.
But the following morning, Lily hadmanaged to persuad him, because he was
in a lot of pain, thatshe managed to persuade him to go back
to the hospital, which he did, and doctors removed the bullet from his
shoulder. When they removed the bullet, they were very surprised to find that
they believed it had been homemade andit was actually cut from a metal rod.

(14:43):
The other strange thing, okay,is that The doctors said they don't
believe that it had been shot froma gun, because had it been shot
from a gun, the force ofit would have blown his shoulder clean off,
but because of the way it wasembedded in his shoulder, it hadn't
gone in really far. They believedthat it had been shot from a catapult.

(15:09):
A catapult, Yeah, like asling shot. Yeah, okay,
okay, that's really strange, itis, isn't it. It's really But
now, immediately when I say toyou, you've got an injury and it's
from a catapult, what's the firstthing that you think of when you think
catapult? Slingshot? Like a rockor a pebble or something. Yeah,

(15:31):
and who would be playing? Whowould yes? And that's exactly what I
thought. Straight away. I thought, I wonder if this is a kid,
because a kid's not likely to haveaccess to a shotgun. If it
was a shotgun, it's more likelyto be an adult. So straight away,
I don't know of many adults inmy tut in my life that have

(15:52):
had a slingshot or a catapult thatthey would just be randomly catapulting about in
a street, you know. Okay, So if it was a catapult.
What would be so he said heheard a clicking sound. What would a
clicking sound be if it was alike if it was a slingshot? Well,
because I used to have one whenI was a kid, which was
called a black Widow, and itused to strap over your arm and then

(16:15):
when you pulled it back, itused to click, and then it used
to go, So you'd like pullit back and it would hold it and
then as soon as you let go, it would flick forward. So I
always think that's what straightaway came tomy mind. That was it like somebody
that had it on their arm thatwas clicking it? Possibly okay, or
if it's like the follow through,that's why he's yeah, then he heard

(16:37):
a click, yeah, okay yeah, Or it could have been the click
could have been hitting him in theback, because he might have heard it
like click over his coat or throughhis coat or whatever. I mean,
how he didn't see this when hegot home, or how he didn't check
his shoulder and rub his shoulder andfeel the blood, I'm not quite sure.
But obviously he had been drinking quitea bit, so he had been

(16:59):
very entireated. I would think ifif he don't feel it or he didn't
think about it. And then thefact that he didn't like he saw the
blood and he wasn't concerned about it. That seems like someone that's like tox
kidd and they don't understand or realizelike the severity of the situation. Or
there could be another reason why hedidn't tell mpany We'll get to that.
So Jim, Jim reluctantly spoke tothe doctors, explained what had happened.

(17:26):
The doctors urged him to speak topolice officers, and he didn't really didn't
want to speak to police officers.But again he then did go and speak
to the police officers. They theyactually took him to where it all happened,
and he walked them through exactly whathappened, exactly where he was,
and talked them through pretty much everythingthat happened that night. Now, Jim's

(17:49):
health unfortunately took a turn for theworst and he was moved to a local
nursing home for care. Then theinvestigation took a turn for the worst because
on the two only second of Marchnineteen thirty four, four days after he
was shot, he actually passed away. Oh so the cause of death was
registered as gangreen and sept semia froman infected wound. And no one caught

(18:15):
this before it got that bad.Wow. Okay, so obviously now the
investigation changes to a murder investigation.When the police started investigating this, they
found that the locals were very reluctantto give any information, even though Jim
was described as a really well likedman, no enemies. Officers spent the

(18:38):
early hours of Friday, March thetwenty third interview in the locals as well
as searching all the local areas.So they searched the hedgerows, they searched
the fields, they searched people's outhouses, people's farms, rivers, there was
a river that runs through for anysign of the weapon that could have been
used to kill Jim, and theyfound nothing. Now, when I say

(18:59):
that they're reluct to talk, Imean they are reluctant to They refuse to
talk about it. Even later on, there was a documentary, and I'll
explain to you about the documentary.But there's a documentary made about this,
and you can actually watch in thedocumentary. The guy that the guy called
Barry does the documentary and you cansee him interviewing people locally and they say.

(19:21):
He says to them, like,what do you think happened? And
they say, no, no,we're not going to talk about it.
We're not going to talk about it. We don't want to talk about We're
not interested. It's really really weird. It's really weird. Well, i'll
explain to you in a minute mytheory on that. The police said that
they actually spoke to hundreds of people, and hundreds of people interviewed, including
practically every single resident in Bashl Weavesitself. They were interested in identifying the

(19:48):
following people. Then they gave thisout as a list. Okay, A
broadly built man carrying a walking stick, a man and a woman who had
them had a farm dog with them, young man wearing an overcoat, a
Trillby hat who was in company witha woman wearing a green coat, and
a fairly tall man wearing a lightbrown overcoat and a Trillby hat. That

(20:11):
is very vague, thank you.It's a very, very in depth list
of who they want to talk to. Yeah, And I mean, honestly,
if you think about it too,that's a lot of people that,
oh, yeah, could have potentiallybeen in this very like tiny area.
I mean, at this time atnight, it's dark, there should be

(20:33):
very few of any people on eitherstretch of roads, of course, and
they're naming off how many I meanhow many people they're naming off? Were
talking like two, three, four, five, six, six people?
Okay, six people. Yeah,that's probably like the most people that have

(20:53):
been on black that back lane thatevening. That's probably everyone that was in
the area. Yeah, it's strangenow that obviously the police are are looking
into this. But there were severaltheories that locals had talked about but obviously
not talk to the police about.And we're talking. You know what it's

(21:14):
like in a small, small village. Everybody talks, they just don't talk
to the right people. Now,the first theory, I'll give you a
few theories and see what you think. The first theory was that Jim knew
who that person was standing by thegate, and that it was a local
lad, and he didn't want toget the lad in trouble. He didn't
believe that it was very serious.He just thought it was the kid firing
stones at him, thought it wasa prank, didn't realize how seriously he

(21:37):
was injured and didn't tell the policebecause he didn't want the kid to get
in trouble. Obviously he didn't knowthat he was going to get sept to
seem mea and gangreen and die.But maybe he was protecting a local kid
and that's why the locals aren't speakingabout it, because they don't want to
get the kid in trouble, right, Okay, So that's theory number one.

(21:57):
And I think that's straight away whenthey said catapult, I straight away
thought, oh, maybe it wasa kid, you know, firing stones
and he's just picked up a bitof rod by accident and has just fired
it, not realizing that it's actuallygoing to cause such serious harm. And
if Jim is always mentioned to bea really nice man, everybody liked him,
and he's got no enemies that weknow of, and so maybe he

(22:19):
was like he didn't want to getthe kid in trouble, not realizing that
it was actually a piece of ametal that was in his shoulder at the
first time of reporting it, becausehe didn't know what was in there,
yeah, until they actually took itout. So do you think, like,
because when we're talking about this area, we're talking about I mean,

(22:42):
we're not even talking about like avillage where this is. We're talking about
Oh no, it's just a lane, the farm the lane. Yeah.
So is it like a relative,like someone that he like, a like
a nephew, Yeah, yeah,yeah, I mean it's a mile.
The stretch of road is a milefrom the pub to his farm. And
we're talking about back lane, whichis back lane is not even it's not

(23:06):
even a quarter of a mile.It's a tiny little bit of road and
there's nothing between. There is nothingbetween the pub and the in the farm.
Yeah, it's just it's just it'sjust fields. It's just one there's
one farm between it. But thishappened on This happened on back lane.

(23:29):
And if you look around back lane, really there's nothing. So if someone's
hanging out around, you know,the entrance to back lane, chances are
they live on the farm. Yeah. Another reason why he would be reluctant
to say who it was that didit, if he was somebody he knew,
mm hmm. Yeah, So thatthat was that's I think that's quite

(23:52):
a good theory. Now another theory, Yeah, another theory is that Jim
was targeted because he was seeing severalwomen in the village and that they thought
maybe a jealous husband might be theculprit, but there was no real kind
of proof of this being true.Now, it had been said that James
was seeing a married woman from Salford, so perhaps it could have been that,

(24:15):
you know, the married woman's husband. But I would have thought of
there was a better time and abetter place to get him. But then
saying that it's a dark road.He could have been sat in the pub
as well. He could have followedhim, He could have shot at him
with whatever, and yeah, doneit from his from his from behind him.
So that's the second theory. Now, the third theory was that the

(24:37):
bullet was intended for Tommy Kenyan.Now, if you remember, Tommy Kenyan
was Jim's farm hand that he sawin the passing car, and a lot
of people believe that Jim was shotin a case of mistaken identity. Tommy
was believed to have been seeing ayoung girl called Nancy Simpson, and it
was a secret relationship because her father, also called Tommy, didn't approve of

(24:59):
the relationship. A few days beforeJim was shot, Tommy Kenyon had a
fight with Nancy's father, Tommy.They had a huge fight because Nancy had
revealed to her father she was inthe family way, So Tommy, her
dad, jumped to the conclusion thatthe father of the baby was Tommy Kenyon.

(25:22):
But Nancy went on to have ason. Now, when she had
that son, she named another guyas the baby's father, a guy called
Arthur, not Tommy Kenyon. Butten days after Jim died, Tommy Simpson,
Nancy's dad, was found hanged ina barn and he died by suicide.

(25:48):
Now did he die by suicide becausehe felt guilty for Jim's death after
mistaking in for Tommy Kenyon or wasthere another reason for it? There are
some local rumors that Tommy Simpson's farmwas going under and that he had a
lot of financial difficulties, and soa lot of people locally believe that the
suicide was because he was getting intofinancial difficulties and didn't know what to do.

(26:14):
But also a lot of locals believeTommy's suicide is because he felt really
guilty for killing Jim. But wouldTommy Simpson know he would know Jim Dawson
personally though, right, he doesn'tknow him? Yeah, he did know
him. Yeah, they knew eachother. So how I mean, unless
Tommy and Jim looked very similar,I feel like Tommy would have recognized that

(26:41):
that was Jim. Well, Idon't know feel that night he was meant
Tommy. Tommy Kenyon was meant tobe going to the same pub that Jim
went to. Originally he was meantto go to that pub, but at
the last minute they changed their mindsand they went off to another pub.
So it was believed that Tommy Kenyanwould be walking home that night, back

(27:03):
to bachel Farm. And so wasit that Tommy Simpson who had had a
fight with him, you know,a few days before. Was it that
he saw him thinking it was Tommyand just acted on impulse and hit him,
didn't realize it was Jim. Okay, I see what we're saying.
So there's a few theories there.Could it be a local kid, and

(27:26):
Jim, being a nice guy,doesn't want to get the kid in trouble,
doesn't think he's in that much youknow, he's in that much pain,
So he doesn't think there's that muchgoing on. Everything's going to be
fine, He's all right, doesn'tname who it is, refuses to talk
about it. That could be thatway. Is it somebody that he knows?
As in, is it somebody onhis farm? Is it somebody?
If you remember, right at thevery beginning of this episode, I said

(27:49):
that Jim lived with his sister andhis other sister and his sister's son,
Albert, and I straight he thought, hmmm, I wonder if it was
Albert, And I wonder if Albertwas messing about on the farm, and
maybe Albert hit him by mistake.And so he's made up this story that

(28:11):
he was just walking along and hegot hit in the shoulder and he doesn't
know who it was, doesn't knowwho did it. Could it be that
that was the case, And there'snothing I haven't read anybody that has asked
that question. So I just justsomething that I just thought of. Maybe
it was somebody he knew. Maybeit happened closer to home than he's actually
saying, because he didn't want toget someone in trouble, right, I

(28:32):
mean to me, that makes themost sense. Yeah, I don't see
in a you know, a grownman. I could see a confrontation,
right, like a fight, yeahhappening not here. I got something shot
and I'm gonna peg you with ahomemade bullet or a pebble or whatever it

(28:56):
might be, because that's almost likeyou don't want to expect to, you
know, cause a huge wound,like a gunshot wound when when you're when
you're using a sling shot, Ifyou're using a sling shot, it's it's
gonna hurt. You're gonna be likegonna ping them and it's gonna hurt,
and you're gonna have a good laugh, right, like a prank. Yeah.

(29:17):
Yeah. So if you are,if you are to the point where
you're gonna you know, we're say, stalking someone, right, I'm gonna
wait for them and I'm going toyou know, hurt them. You're not
just gonna be like, hey,I'm gonna just gonna ping them in the
back with with a you know,a piece of lead or a pebble or
something. With a sling shot,you're gonna have a baseball bat, you're

(29:38):
gonna have a club, you're gonnahave a gun. Right, Yeah,
you're gonna you're gonna do what youthink you have to do. You're not
gonna do like, oh, I'mgonna just hit them with a pebble and
be an annoyance, right yeah,And that kind of thing makes me think
that that's maybe a kid's action ora younger person's action. They're just being
a menace, you know, Andthen they didn't mean any actual harm.

(30:00):
They're just being like a little shit. Now, there was a documentary I
mentioned earlier. It was made innineteen seventy nine, and it's called The
Village That Would Not Talk. Now, this is on YouTube, so go
onto YouTube and watch it. It'sonly about forty minutes long. It's not
very long. It's a guy calledBarry Shaw. It's very old English and
the accents in it. They're fromup north, and they're very difficult to

(30:23):
understand. Even I had trouble understandingtheir accents. The way that they speak
is very it's not easy to understand. Now, Barry, sure, he's
very easy to understand. He talksabout Jim's death and the mystery surrounding it.
He also talked to Tommy Kenyan himself. Now this is years and years

(30:44):
and years after the murder, andTommy's a fully grown I would say,
a man in his maybe seventies inthe in the in the documentary, and
this is in like nineteen seventy nine, he looked a lot older now,
he admits. Tommy actually admits thatafter Jim's death that he felt that the
bullet was meant for him because ofthe fight that he had with Nancy's father.

(31:06):
He talks a lot to the localsin it, Barry does, and
they say because because when the whenthe inquest came around, the coroner ruled
it as an open verdict because theycouldn't be sure for sure that this was
an intended murder, so they couldn'tactually say, so they left it as
an open verdict, which means whensomething's left as an open verdict, it

(31:29):
means that it can be reinvestigated again, and it means that somebody can be
somebody can be prosecuted for that occurrence. So he thinks, So Tommy Kenyan
thinks that the bullet was intended forhim. And when Barry goes to the
different you can see him. Hegoes down to different farms. He talks
to people at their gates and theysay there's one guy in particular, if

(31:52):
you watch it or know who Imean, And he stands there and he
says, oh, no, no, I'm not I'm not talking about that.
No, I've got nothing to sayabout that no, because it was
left as an open verdict, wasn'tit, which means somebody can be had
for that. No, definitely don'twant to talk about it. No,
no, no, not gonna,not gonna say a thing. And pretty
much everybody interviews is the same.They're like the next guy that he talks

(32:14):
to and he's like, oh no, no, like leaning on his farm
gate and he's like, oh no, no, no, no, I
don't. I don't want to talkabout it, to be honest, No,
I'm not interested in talking about it. And I thought, this is
so weird. This is so weird. You've got this guy that was hit
in the back. Okay, maybeit was an accident, you know,
if it was a tragic accident thathe got hit in the back, it

(32:34):
was it was just someone messing around, but the guy's died. This then
becomes very serious. Is this villageclosing ranks on somebody? Immediately it comes
to mind that it's somebody young,because why are the village trying to protect
somebody Unless it's it's somebody young,Why would they want to protect Tommy Simpson?

(32:55):
Who who's dead now? Right?Yeah? If it was Tommy Simpson,
there's different and he's dead. There'snothing to pretend, yes exactly,
So then I would think, well, if he's died, they would just
go, well, yeah, wethought it was Tommy because of the fight
with the you know, the daughter. We thought that Tommy was trying to
shoot the other Tommy, or hewas trying to warn him off his daughter.

(33:15):
But no, they're still years andyears and years later. They don't
want to talk about it. AndI read an interview I've read somebody else
who commented on it saying it's stillthe same nowadays. Grandparents and other parents
won't talk about it. It's inthe pub. They've mentioned it in the
pub. It's a very taboo subject. People just put their heads down and

(33:37):
carry on drinking their pints. It'slike a really sore subject in the village,
and no one will talk about it. I know, right. I
was like, this is really reallyodd. Now, another really odd thing
that I found, and see whatyou think. During the police investigation into
Jim's murder, it was found thata dog that was owned by Jim was

(33:58):
found on Tommy Simpson's life and nowthis dog had been shot, it was
dead, it had been shot.However, whatever was used to shoot the
dog hadn't fully penetrated the dog,just like in Jim's case, and the
dog was sent off for further examination, and when it did, whatever was
used to kill it couldn't be foundbecause it had been taken out of the

(34:21):
wound. So is it that thedog was used as target practice by the
same person who then went on toshoot Jim. I can't see a fully
grown man like shooting practicing. Imean, he's a farmer. Farmers are
pretty handy with a gun. Alot of farmers use guns. They use

(34:42):
them to control vermin on their land. They use them to, you know,
to kill animals that they need tokill. They you know, they've
all got guns. Most farmers thatyou'll talk to are pretty confident with using
a gun. It's very rare forthem not to be. Why would a
farmer be practicing on a dog.I don't I can't see it. I

(35:04):
just can't see that happening. Soagain, was it a younger person that
shot the dog, got in troublethen messing about with his slingshot or whatever,
her slingshot or whatever, shot Jimmessing about. But then Jim's died,
And then it becomes really serious becauseit's not silly pranks anymore. The
dog's dead. Okay, people canforgive a dog dying because it will just

(35:29):
sweep it under the carpet and don'ttalk about it and assume that the dog's
gone missing. But then you know, a person gets injured and then the
person dies. The injury, itcould be put down to it was silly,
it was a prank, but thenthey die and then it becomes very
serious. In the documentary, TommyKenyan talks about a man called Henry.

(35:50):
Now, Henry is Tommy Simpson's nephewand he worked on Tommy Simpson's farm.
He was asked by his uncle Tommyto dispose of a sack. He never
asked what was in the sack,and Barry in the documentary asks Tommy what
he thinks was in the sack,and he said he never actually asked.
He didn't ask Henry what was init, but he had a good idea.
So when Barry pushes him a bitmore and says, you know,

(36:14):
what do you think was in it? He sort of says to him,
well, you know it could havebeen whatever was used to kill Jim.
Well. Interesting, now Jim Dawsonwas buried or is still buried. Obviously,
he was buried in the grounds ofAll Hallow's Church in Mitton, where
he was later rest on the twentysixth of March nineteen thirty four. To

(36:37):
this day, over eighty years later, his murder remains unsolved. But is
it really? When Barry asked TommyKenyon what he thought happened that night,
this is what he had to say, Tommy, have you got any other
theories about the murder? No?I intended for you. Well I actual

(37:01):
now why should you think that youwere the man who was meant to be
murdered that night? With him andthen about your daughter were no more alive.
So if you couldn't understand what hejust said, because it's difficult to

(37:22):
understand. He basically says he believedit was Tommy Simpson that killed Jim,
but that he mistook Jim for Tommyand the bullet was actually made for him.
MM. I don't I don't know. I'm still thinking this was a
youth. I don't know why.Yeah, I don't know why. I've

(37:45):
got that in my head. Idon't think this was intended to be a
serious injury. I mean, Ithink the big tell in this is the
fact that Tommy Simpson's dead. Butyet you know, no one is talking,
has talked was blaming him, eventhough he can't stick up for himself.

(38:05):
I mean, besides Tommy Kenyon rightcoming up and say yeah, I
think, yeah, it meant forme. But besides that, no one,
no one has has like even reallypointed a finger at Tommy Simpsons.
No, not at all. AndI just find it really strange how everybody
has completely just clammed up. Theyjust refuse to talk about it. They
don't even talk around it, theyjust flat out refuse to chat about it

(38:30):
at all. It's it's so weird. Yeah, the only thing that makes
sense is that they're protecting, Yeah, a child who made a terrible mistake,
right, Yeah. Yeah. Andeven though I even think Jim was,
I think Jim was, I thinkit was the same. I think

(38:51):
Jim was the same. From whatI'm looking at and looking into some piecing
stuff together, it could be thatJim knew who it was. I mean,
why a kid would be out thattime of night in the freezing cold
wind and rain, I don't know, but I think that Jim probably knew
who it was that did that andjust didn't say anything. Reluctant to go
to the police because he just didn'twant the hassle of it. Didn't want

(39:14):
to get on the wrong side ofother people in the village because you know,
you don't want to be falling outof your neighbors and stuff. And
if he didn't think he was thatseriously injured, you know, he didn't
really want to say. He nevernamed He never named who it was.
You never named who he thought itmight have been. He didn't and obviously
hit Jim and him. Jim andTommy had no issue together. There was

(39:35):
no issue between the two of them. It was Tommy had the issue with
the other Tommy. So there wasno bad blood with Jim and anybody.
I mean, even the police thatdid all the investigations, they all said
nobody had a bad word to sayabout Jim. They had no enemies,
he had no issues. He livedwith his sisters in his farmhouse. He
was a local farmer, no problems. Everyone at the pub knew him.
And we know that it was verifiedthat he did leave the pub when he

(39:58):
said he did, because another theorywas that he was shot later than he
says he was, so they actuallygot home because his I think his sister
testified something like he got home attwenty past nine and then went to bed
at twenty to ten. But obviouslyTommy Kenyan says that when he got home
at like half eleven, Jim wassat in the chair. So did he
get up again? But we knowthat he did get up again because he

(40:21):
found his sheets covered in blood,So we know that he got up before
the eight o'clock in the morning.When he spoke to the rest of the
house, he didn't want to wakeeverybody up, which is what he tells
the police. The one thing Idon't see an adult using a slingshot to
shoot a dog, but I seea dumb ass kid doing it. I
agree, Yeah, I agree,And I wonder if I'm with you on

(40:42):
protecting somebody, I am with youon that. I think this is.
I think this was a kid whowho's just been a fucking jagass in made
a mistake. Didn't mean to hurthim, but just made a mistake.
Yeah, And then that ties infor me the practiced with the dog.
That ties that into for me aswell, is that that you know,

(41:05):
the dog got killed, and it'son I know it's on unfortunate it's on
Tommy Simpson's land. Whether that hadanything to do with it or not,
I don't know, but it endedup being on Tommy's land. But it
didn't say like it was in hisyard. It could have been on his
land, but right down in aravine, you know, it might not
have necessarily been in his you know, next to his front door, in
his back garden. It could beon the land that he owns somewhere.

(41:28):
It doesn't actually say where the dogwas found. But again, see the
dog. The bullet in sort ofquotation marks was taken out of the dog.
That doesn't sound to me like anadult either. That sounds to me
like a kid who's like killed itand then thought, oh god, I'm
gonna get in trouble. I'm takingthat out. And then he's done it

(41:49):
again and seen what it's like ona human. And of course he hasn't
killed him, he's just hurt him. I don't know why. I don't
know why I've got it. I'dlike to investigate this a lot more,
but obviously it was nineteen thirty fouris a long time ago, and you
haven't even got people that want totalk about the actual murder itself, So
you're not going to get much outof people for this one. It's crazy.

(42:12):
It's crazy. It's very different becauseit's not very often that you get
a murder case where the victim talksthe police through everything that happened to them
and you know, and takes themback to the crime scene and walks them
through the crime scene and describes everythingto them and they get sort of first
hand witness statements from the actual personthat does it. You know, it

(42:34):
sounds like he mentions, like theguy at the gate entrance, right,
but like pointed a finger at thatperson. Was there even a guy?
Was there a guy at the gate? Yeah? Or could that be that
he's just said that, Oh,you know, there was this really mysterious
guy there, so it must havebeen him. I don't know who it
was. Actually, it isn't notan area where some random guy's just going

(42:59):
to be standing no, no,So if there was a person there,
chances are that Jim would have knownwho it was. Yes, exactly,
exactly my thoughts. So, dearold Jim. He sounds like a really
nice guy. He's just, youknow, coming home from the pub.
He's had a few drinks. He'swalking home back to his house. He

(43:19):
gets hit in the shoulder. He'slike, oh, you know whatever that
was, goes to bed, doesn'trealize, wakes up because he's a bit
stiff and sore, then realizes,actually, you know, something's gone in
his shoulder. They think he's thenbeen shot, but the doctors say,
well, no, actually, ifit was a shotgun, it would have
blown your shoulder off, So itwasn't a shotgun. So then he's thinking,
oh, okay, maybe this wasn'tintended to hurt me. So so

(43:40):
and so who I saw that wasbehind me. He didn't mean it.
It was just a prank, soit doesn't say anything obviously. Then things
get worse and worse and he endsup dying from his injury. But it's
too late then. So I thinkthis was a prank gone wrong. Yeah,
I think this was mischief gone Thisis not the time that if it

(44:00):
was a youth, isn't the firsttime a little shit has like used a
slingshot to like hit people with pebblesor whatever. Right, Yeah, it's
just people know who did it.They know who did it. Yeah,
I agree, I think so,but they refuse even like seventy years on,
when they did a round of reinvestigations. Seventy years after it, they
still wouldn't talk about it. Whyif a town won't talk, why because

(44:25):
they're protecting someone. So who arethey protecting the vulnerable the young? Yeah?
Yeah, because, like you said, if it was Tommy Simpson,
he's not around anymore, so youcould lay blame on him and no one
would know. But yeah, othervillagers would know. So the reason everyone's

(44:45):
keeping quiet is because whoever did itwas still alive and still living in that
village, and they all close ranksto protect them. And it had been
someone who made a mistake in theYeah, I think needed to like suffering
any more than they. Yeah,yes, exactly. So I'd be very

(45:07):
interested to see who lived in thevillage at the time. I'd be very
interested to see the dynamics of thefamilies, whether you had any children that
were of lower intelligence, that weremaybe children that had learning difficulties back then.
Was it something like that, andthat's the reason why they're protecting them.

(45:28):
I'd like to see who was livingwhere, particularly around that area,
because I mean, chances are it'sgoing to be somebody who lives close there.
Yeah, I agree, I agree. I'd like to know who the
youths were at that time, wherethey lived, who they belonged to,

(45:50):
and what kind of people they were. But I just don't think you're going
to get there. You're not.Nobody's going to unless you discover a diary
from like a granddad or a grandmafrom back in the day that details exactly
what happens with this case. Idon't think that there's going to be any
way that you'd be able to definitelyprove who did this, which is sad
because I always think there's hope always, but with something like this, there's

(46:15):
no DNA evidence. You know,there's no DNA on the on the slingshot,
and I think that the only wayyou would know is if somebody actually
wrote it down from from back inthe day. This is so crazy.
I thought you'd like this one.I thought this was a very very interesting
Yeah, you're welcome. So that'sthis week's case. That is the murder

(46:37):
of Jim Dawson, Bless him therest in peace. Jim. Frustrating,
but I mean it was good.I did like this one. Interesting.
That's an interesting one. This isone I'd like to go and drive to
the village and have a good oldnose around. I think, go and
drink in the pub and never listento what everyone's talking about. Do you
know the most people that visit Jim'sgrave now are criminologists and like criminal studies

(47:04):
students, because it's a completely baffling, have baffling story, and they are
the most. There's so many picturesof people sat next to Jim's grave I
found online. Does people randomly takingpictures of themselves with his grave? It's
it's really interesting. It is avery interesting case. Yeah, and I've
never heard of it either one.It's just interesting to come across it.
If it was a kid, ayouth, this is some serial killer like

(47:29):
behavior right here right the dog andthen trying them. H Yeah, interesting
traits, isn't it. We allknow when you start off things like that
what that can lead to. Sobe very interesting to see what those people
that lived in the village as teenagerswent on to do in later life where
they are what they're doing, wouldbe really interested. Exactly. Well with

(47:53):
that cherry, how about we layingthe mood and we do a little thing
called dumb criminal. Hey use adummy and use a piece of shit.
Okay, so this one is avery strange dump criminal. This comes to
us from Utah. So in Provo, Utah. So a teenager there is

(48:13):
in hot water after allegedly taping fishto ATMs in the Provo area and that
yes, and so he would hewas he was taping fish to ATMs and
he was documenting these antics on socialmedia. Okay, so apparently this teenager

(48:35):
was going around he ended up tapingat least thirteen fish to ATMs as well
as other objects. Okay, Sothese displays are shared on Instagram on the
account called fish Underscore Bandit eighty fourfish Bandit. It's like home alone in

(48:57):
the wet bandits. Yeah. Soit's unclear if the creator of this account
did all the fish taping or ifhe pulled these from other areas but he
ended up getting caught. There wasactually one video showing a trout being taped
to a Provo police car, whichwhich garnered nearly thirty thousand likes. Wow.

(49:22):
Now, this teenager does face twocharges of property damage and they end
up being referred to the Juvenile Justiceand Youth Services. And these two charges
stem from the cost of cleanup Imean, how did that even come about?
How do they even Oh, Iknow what we'll do. Why don't

(49:44):
we just go and tape fish tothings? We can be called the fish
bandit. It's like, yeah,why did you even get that idea?
You idiot? No, so sothis donut, Yeah, is our dumb
criminal for doing something so ridiculous andso trivial. And yeah, now he's

(50:07):
in some hot water for it.Come on, really, but I gotta
say too, this isn't the worstthing. Someone is just stupid. I
mean, obviously, if he's goingaround murdering fish to do this, and
that's not acceptable. But if they'realready dead, he's buying them from like
a supermarket and sticking them on things, It's just mischievous, isn't it.
It's just like this should be aslap on the hand and don't be such

(50:29):
an idiot. But I mean,obviously, if he's going around stealing carp
from someone's pond, or he's goingaround, you know, doing stealing the
fish, then it's slightly different.But I mean, to be known as
like the fish bandit or the wetbandit wherever he was known as, I
mean, that's not the most manlykind of scary moniker. Is it a
fish band? Oh it's not,it's not. But here's the thing too,

(50:52):
And I think I don't think likeI don't know if teenagers don't realize
it, but but things like whenyou post things on social yeah, easy,
somewhere else, they're going to findyou. This is good, They're
going to forge you. Just goodfor the future of criminals. If you're

(51:13):
going to do dumb shit like this, then carry on because you're going to
get caught. That's going to begood for society. So we don't want
any really clever criminals getting away withthings, right, right, So either
dumb criminal, but I mean,come on, come on, I think
he's a bit of a dumb minx. Maybe not a criminal as such,
maybe it's just a bit Yeah,it's a bit of as a bit of

(51:36):
a minx. But there we are. Thank you very much for listening to
us this week. I'd love toknow your thoughts on this episode. What
do you think was the was thewho do you think was the culprit of
Jim's death? I'd like to knowwhat you get from that and have a
look. By all means, goon to YouTube and have a look at
it's not on for very long.Just go on, have a look,
just search for the town that wouldNot Talk and it will come up.

(51:58):
It's it's a nineteen seventy so basicallywith that, it's a very old it's
not a very up to date one. Somebody's videoed it on a TV screen,
but you can get the gist ofit. And don't ask me to
translate because I can't do the upnorth stuff, so I don't understand half
of the lot they're saying, justas much as you probably won't. But
i'd be very interested to hear yourthoughts, so you know, grab us
on social media and let us knowyour thoughts on this one, and we'll
be back next week. Next weekit'll be Morgan's case. So have a

(52:21):
great week and for now, benice and bye.