Fifty years ago, the blasted bodies of three unmarried siblings, members of the Luxton family, were discovered at a Devon dairy farm, set in a lush stretch between the ‘lavender haze’ of Exmoor and Dartmoor. The youngest member of the family, Alan, was 55. He lay in his pyjamas and work boots on the cobbles in the farmyard. Robbie, 65, with cuts to his face, and Frances, 68, clad in a nightgown rucked up to her waist, were found together in the garden. All the doors to the primitive thatched family farmhouse were locked from inside.
The ‘tragic trio’, as they were described by the tabloid press, were the last of an ancient line who had farmed at West Chapple, Winkleigh. Each of the victims had their heads blown off. The questions John Cornwell’s book, originally published in 1982, seeks to answer are: who shot whom, in what order, and why.
His investigation was launched when Peter Carson, his late editor at Penguin, sent him a newscutting about the bloodbath in September 1975 with a scribbled note: ‘FYI: is there a book in this?’ After reading the press report, Cornwell set off to talk to the siblings’ neighbours and local farm workers. The picture that emerges is unforgettably bleak. The Luxtons were a proud, penny-pinching, reclusive family who kept to the old ways. If a farmhand scrumped an apple, money would be deducted from his wages; if the weather was too extreme for outside work, that day would be regarded as part of annual leave.
Cornwell discovered that when Alan wanted to sell his share of the property and marry his sweetheart, Robbie refused to buy him out.
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