West Wales Life&Style May-June 2021

“While I was working as a reporter
on the South Wales¬¬ Guardian –
the weekly newspaper that boughtout
the Amman Valley Chronicle in
the 1950s – I was looking through
some back issues and came across
a small bereavement notice on the
death of the former village bobby,”
said Steve.
“The reporter was full of praise
for Sergeant Thomas Richards and
catalogued his career highlights,
but in the final, pointed sentence he
noted that for all his fine work, Sgt
Richards had been unable to catch
the killer of Thomas Thomas at Star
Stores some 40-odd years earlier.
“I was stunned. I’d always had an
interest in true crime, particularly
anything committed in west Wales,
so I was amazed to read of an
unsolved murder I knew
nothing about and decided
to do some digging.”
Steve was astounded by
the story he unearthed,
which included Britain’s
most famous detective, an
Army deserter, midnight
bonfires, explosives hidden in
hedgerows and even links to the
West Wales Life&Style
PC David Thomas with the knife used to stab shopkeeper Thomas Thomas
author of the Sherlock Holmes
stories.
Little had been written about the
murder, but Steve eventually came
‘
The man who caught the
man who broke the bank
at Monte Carlo ’
across an article in an academic
journal by the globally-respected
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expert in international relations,
Owen Harries, who had been born
in Garnant a few years after the
crime.
Although the article
was primarily about the
industrial decline of the
south Wales coalfields,
Steve was intrigued by the
reference it made to the
murder and the claim that
the killer’s identity was
known.
According to Owen, a man named
Mountstephens had killed Thomas
Thomas. The shopkeeper had rented
a room in the Mountstephens
family home and when Thomas
Thomas failed to come home that
night, Mountstephens’ failure to
investigate was seen as proof that
he had played some part in the
crime. The fact that the murder
weapons – a bloodstained broom
handle and a knife taken from the
shop - were discovered near a path
that led towards Mountstephen’s
house further cemented the popular
belief of his guilt.
Steve, however, was unconvinced.
“It all seemed far too vague and
circumstantial,” he said. “Witnesses
had heard Thomas Thomas tell
Mountstephens that he planned to
work late that night and although
the knife and broomstick were
found on a path that went towards
Mountstephens’ house, there were
lots of junctions off it leading
elsewhere too. It was in the fact
the most likely escape route for
the killer wherever he or she was
heading.
“The most telling aspect though
was the fact that the police soon
dismissed Mountstephens as a
suspect.”
And the policeman summoned to
investigate the case was not your
average village bobby.
West Wales Life&Style
Inside the Garnant branch of Star Stores (above) where Thomas Thomas was murdered a century ago. The safe in the office behind the shop (below)
was left open after the killer made off with a little over £100 pounds.
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