Forty-year-old Karen Chandler was a divorced mother of two grown sons who worked as a security guard at the Ministry of Defense Vehicle Depot in Ludgershall, Wiltshire, England.
Early on the morning of June 20th, 2000, she left her home in West Lavington to drive to work, but she never arrived there. Her whereabouts were unknown until June 23rd when her remains were discovered inside her burned-out Vauxhall Cavalier on Salisbury Plain near Redhorn Hill.
The doors of the vehicle were locked, though the keys were never found. Karen’s body was too damaged to ascertain the cause of death, but at the inquest, a verdict of unlawful killing was returned.
A knife was recovered from Karen’s car; it was unclear whether this was the murder weapon, but it was established that it did not belong to the victim.
As there was no sign of charring to Karen’s lungs, it was determined that she was killed before the car was set alight. No sign of an accelerant was found.
In October of 2001, a sixty-four-year-old farm worker named Bryan Maloney, who had known Karen and her family for a decade, was charged with her murder and placed on trial. He stated that Karen Chandler was supposed to have picked up some buckets from him as she drove to work through Urchfont at approximately five a.m. on June 20th, but according to him, she never showed up.
The prosecution maintained that Maloney was obsessed with Karen and became enraged when he met her with her new boyfriend, soldier Craig Corfield. They argued that Maloney often showered Karen with gifts and phoned her several times a day. They further alleged that spots of Karen’s blood had been found on Maloney’s underwear and undershirt. According to their timeline, Maloney abducted Karen at knifepoint when she arrived on the morning of June 20th to pick up the buckets, then forced her to drive to Dogtail Plantation, where he killed her. He then purportedly drove the vehicle to Salisbury Plain and set fire to it.
Maloney denied this series of events, stating that although he often bought gifts for Karen, he also bought gifts for her sons, and pointed out that Karen bought gifts for him too, as they were longtime friends. The blood on his clothes, he said, had come from an incident a week earlier where Karen pricked her fingers on a rosebush while helping him with some gardening. According to a defense witness, Maloney had been seen riding his bike around Dogtail Plantation at roughly the time of the murder, and he had appeared completely calm, with no blood on his clothing.
Maloney was subsequently acquitted of the crime, as there was no direct evidence linking him to the slaying. In 2002, Karen’s father told the media that he was considering bringing a private prosecution against the person he deemed responsible for her murder, though he didn’t name the individual in question.
As of this writing, the murder of Karen Chandler is still unresolved.
Crime Immemorial 