The case of the elderly Colonel shot dead for no apparent reason when he opened the door of his cottage in the picture postcard village of Furneux Pelham has turned from Cluedo into clueless. The Guardian reports the remarkable fact that, despite the fact that a GP had certified the death and police and ambulance people had been crawling all over the scene, it took no less three hours before anyone realised the dead man had actually been shot:

'When the ambulance arrived in the village its staff could not find anything amiss and departed. It was 7am before Col Workman's body was discovered by his daily carer. She found him sprawled across the doorstep.

'She summoned the police and ambulance service. In the meantime a number of other local people arrived, including a GP. The body was covered by a duvet and the doctor certified the death at 8.15am. "It was not until 10 past 10, when the undertakers decided to move the body," Mr Mann told a press conference yesterday at Hertfordshire police headquarters, "that the wound was discovered and the death treated as suspicious.

"The ambulance service and the health authority have instituted an investigation, and we are reviewing how we deal with reports of sudden death. Obviously I was not impressed - but it has happened. I can't say whether evidence was lost or not." '

Miss Marple wouldn't have been seen dead in a plot like this.

Posted by melanie at January 15, 2004