If you’re not familiar with it this is one of Coventry’s most baffling unsolved murder cases. Penelope Mogano married in 1938, her husband, Carlo, worked for Daimler and by 1954 they had two sons and were living in a nice house on Holland Road. As far as we know the marriage was pretty sound, Carlo had become a works inspector, earned a decent salary and the boys, one at school one in work, were growing up with decent career prospects ahead. According to neighbours Penelope, who looked after house and home, had a pretty well established daily routine. House work done in the mornings, lunch prepared for the family, who all returned home around 1pm, and preparation for the evening meal made from around 5.30pm. As a result of all that it’s fair to say I would imagine that the afternoons were generally reasonably free, important for her I think because it allowed her the freedom to pursue a life away from the family home. Exactly just what that entailed has never been fully explained which in turn added an unexpected level of mystery to the case and helped make this one of the strangest cases in Coventry’s criminal past.
It begins when the family arrived home on 18 January 1954 at the end of a bitterly cold winter’s afternoon to find the house locked down and in total darkness. For a woman who prided herself on the routines she herself had set in place it was, obviously, unprecedented. Adrian, her youngest son and the first to arrive home from school at somewhere around five o’clock, was forced to kick his heels outside until his father Carlo arrived from work, not something he’d ever had to do. Same goes for Carlo who must have realised something serious was wrong when he used his key to let himself in at around 6pm. Inside, according to his later statement, the kitchen was neat and tidy, everything in its place, all the crockery from the earlier lunch washed and put back where it needed to go. What he noted was that no prep work had been done for the evening meal, which he knew was odd as was the fact that in the lounge the fire had been laid but not lit. Not in itself a crisis though more evidence she’d been delayed somewhere and would get back later. That changed when he walked through from the lounge into the dining room.
Penelope Mogano was sitting upright in an easy chair, clearly dead. Blood splattered across the walls around where she sat a clear indicator and on her lap lay a 12 inch carving knife. She had also been severely battered about the head and her face had been mutilated. According to the later post-mortem the knife had been used to stab her and twenty-five blows to her head from a round headed hammer had caused most of the head trauma. She had not been sexually assaulted. Nothing else in the house had been disturbed. In the main bedroom police found Penelope had laid out a clean, unworn dress ready to change into, which suggested she had somewhere she needed to be that afternoon, and that her killer had locked the door when he left ( where did that key go?). Coventry police, as protocol demanded, very quickly decided to involve Scotland Yard who sent Det. Supt. John Edmunds and Det Sgt. Ted Williams the following day.
As is standard practice still today Carlo was questioned, the husband being the main suspect, but quickly exonerated, and there the case ends. Police did recreate the murder scene two days later which helped them conclude that the killer had not broken in to the house but had been let in by Mrs Mogano. Strong suggestion there by them that she knew her killer. The post-mortem findings discussed at the inquest also showed that she had probably been standing in front of her killer or killers when the attack started. There were defence wounds on her hands and arms. This in turn led to speculation that the killer could have been a woman. We’re talking 1954 here, different times, allowing men into your home not something that would have been done so easily back then. There was also the idea that it was a murder caused by jealousy – facial mutilation often a result of something perceived by the attacker as a threat or something along those lines. Certainly police seemed surprised by the lack of information from near neighbours. Anybody coming to the house would have been seen – wouldn’t they?
Surveys were carried out in the near vicinity, police tracked down milkmen, coalmen, newspaper boys, butchers, bakers, insurance salesmen, gasmen, and general tradesmen, all to no avail. The net result of their enquiries by the end of February 1954 was that Penelope Mogano was murdered by someone she opened the door to, someone she knew and someone who lived nearby. They made it clear also that they believed that killer’s identity was being kept hidden by others, maybe someone the killer lived with, husband or wife and they raised questions – what did Penelope Mogano do in the afternoons. Who did she meet and just who would she have been comfortable allowing into her home on a day when she clearly had an appointment to keep.
Personally I think this is still solvable. It may be seventy odd years ago but this is too big a crime to have been kept hidden – someone out there still knows – would you agree?
