Police are refusing to rule out a potential link between the deaths of a brother and sister whose bodies were found in Pembrokeshire more than 45 years ago and one of Wales’ most notorious ever serial killers. Martha and Griff Thomas were found dead at Ffynnon Samson - the farmhouse they lived at together - in the village of Llangolman in December, 1976.
An inquest held the following year concluded that Mr Thomas had killed his sister after a row and then died after setting himself on fire. It was therefore widely accepted that nobody else was involved in the deaths, or in the fire that was started inside the house. You can get the latest WalesOnline newsletters e-mailed to you directly for free by signing up here.
However, speculation has circulated for decades that a third party may have been involved. This speculation intensified in the years that followed when brother and sister Richard and Helen Thomas were killed in their home at Scoveston Park before it was set on fire in December, 1985. Chillingly, that happened around 20 miles from where Martha and Griff Thomas were found dead.
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The man responsible for the Scoveston Park murders was serial killer John Cooper, originally from Milford Haven, who was jailed for life in 2011 for a raft of crimes including four murders in total. You can read more about Cooper's horrifying crimes here.
Cooper has famously been nicknamed 'The Game Show Killer' because he appeared as a contestant on ITV's Bullseye in the late 1980s inbetween two sets of murders he was later convicted of, and footage from the episode was even used years later to bring him to justice. You can read more about that here.
Last week, Dyfed-Powys Police confirmed that it would re-open the Ffynnon Samson case because “significant developments have been seen in forensic science over the last forty years which may provide additional information even in cases of this age”. When pressed on whether there could be a link between the deaths and serial killer Cooper - who has consistently been linked with other murders aside from the four he was convicted of - a spokeswoman for the force did not rule it out, saying: “We are reviewing what limited material we have and we will keep an open mind as we are led by scientific examinations.”
Hefin Wyn, editor of the Welsh language and Pembrokeshire-based newspaper, Clebran, which has long campaigned for a re-opening of the Ffynnon Samson case, said it was a positive sign that police were now looking at material again, and that they believed Gruff Thomas, who had lived in Llangolman all his life, was innocent and not responsible for his sister’s death.
“We have discussed the contents of the original police report submitted to the inquest with several experienced ex-policemen, who have been involved in solving serious crimes, and they are of the opinion there are obvious questions that need to be asked regarding the nature of the original investigation,” said Mr Wyn. "We continue with our campaign to clear Gruff Thomas’s name who was deemed to have murdered his sister and we insist not enough attention was given to the likely theory that a third person was responsible for the crime.
"There is a glimmer of hope that some evidence can be found to prove what all those inhabitants who knew the brother and sister sincerely believe that they had not attacked each other. They had co-habited under the same roof until they reached their seventies and it is difficult to establish a single motive to support the theory they had attacked each other in such a gruesome manner as is highlighted by the photographs of their injuries. And again the explanation that Gruff Thomas had met his death by deliberately setting himself on fire is highly unlikely.”
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