“What’s all this caper? I’ll finish my pint first,” Graham Thomas told the police when they collared him on the night of OCTOBER 4th, 1962, in a pub at Llanelli, Carmarthenshire.
A 25-year-old unemployed labourer, he had been chatting to his girlfriend earlier in the day during her shift at a local factory. Her 62-year-old supervisor Henry Holt had ordered him out, telling the girl to get back to work.
Looking around, Thomas had spotted a hammer on a nearby workbench. He had grabbed it, striking the supervisor repeatedly on the head. By the time an ambulance and the police arrived, Mr. Holt was dead.
“I panicked,” Thomas told the police. “I’m sorry. I did not know him.” He added that he had thought Mr. Holt was going to call the police and have him ejected.
Pleading guilty to murder when he appeared at Carmarthen Assizes on December 13th, 1962, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released in 1978 after serving 15 years.