Warren Wilson

Warren Wilson was shot dead in what was believed to be a gang and drugs related hit on 17 August 1997.

A man was tried for his murder but acquitted.

He was shot as he sat in his car in Alexander Road, Bedford which was described as busy at the time.

Warren Wilson was shot with a Smith and Wesson which was later found wrapped up in a towel by a street cleaner in a flowerbed. It was said that the gun had been wrapped up in the towel when it was fired. Warren Wilson was shot four times in the head in what was said to be an assassination.

The gun was said to have once been a policeman's gun which was sold on to a registered dealer and then supposedly later destroyed although in actual fact it ended up in the criminal underworld.

Warren Wilson had been a police informant.

It was thought that his murder was part of an escalating turf war between gangs trying to control the drug trade in Bedford. It was said that his rivals were two brothers that had put a £12,000 price on Warren Wilson's head.

The man that was tried for his murder but acquitted went to the Caribbean island of Caricou soon after the murder and was later arrested in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York by armed US marshals in August 1999.

The man waived his right to fight extradition and at his trial at the Old Bailey it was heard that he had confessed to his brother soon after the murder at a barbecue. The man's brother, who was in prison serving a four-year sentence for drug dealing after being convicted in July 1998, at the time of the trial, said that he also helped his brother to flee the country and helped to collect the bounty from the drug dealers that had put the contract out on Warren Wilson.

However, at the trial the man said that he was being framed by the police and said that his brother had made up his story so that he could get remission. It was also heard that the brother had AIDS and the man's defence said of the brother and his claims, 'If you haven't got anything to live for you are capable of doing anything'. The brother said that he told the police about the murder because he disapproved of the killing.

The man said that a mystery gunman did it. The man also said of his brother and his claim, 'We know how powerful the hatred one brother can have for another brother ever since the Old Testament when Cane killed Abel'.

The man was acquitted of the murder of Warren Wilson and after he was cleared the police said that they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the murder.