Jack Owen

Jack Owen was shot in the neck on his allotment at The Meadows by the River Trent, Nottingham on 21 June 1944.

He had lived at 14 Barnsley Terrace in Nottingham and was found dead in a fowl pen near the River Trent by his wife. The allotment was near to the LNER goods yard.

He had a bullet wound to his neck, but neither the weapon nor the bullet was found.

The police said that they thought that the bullet had been fired from a distance.

They added that one thing was for certain and that was that he had not shot himself.

They further added that as far as they could tell, he had had no enemies. As such, the police said that they didn't carry out a manhunt in the ordinary sense of the term, but said that they thought that it was well within the bounds of possibility that his injury was accidently caused.

They said that they were endeavouring to discover from what direction the shot had been fired and whether anyone in the Meadows had heard any shooting or could give any clues as to the weapon from which the bullet could have been fired.

His post-mortem revealed that he had been shot from the rear and it was said that his death would have been practically instantaneous.

The allotment was on LNER land and was one of many kept by railwaymen. It lay at the back of Glapton Road and the main line to Leicester and London ran nearby.

Near his body, the police found a hammer that he had been using to repair his fowl house after the door had been smashed by egg thieves a few nights before.

Jack Owen's wife said that she last saw Jack Owen alive at about 7.30pm the previous evening when he left home to go to his allotment in Queen's Walk. She said that she later went to the allotment at 8.20pm and found Jack Owen lying on the ground in the corner of a foul pen.

It was later reported on 29 June 1944 that on the day that Jack Owen was shot a woman had been travelling by train from Leicester to Nottingham when at about 6pm a bullet crashed through the window of the compartment that she had been in.

Nottingham detectives described the case as 'a first-class mystery'.

Jack Owen had been a railway checker and had four children, two of whom were in the forces.

The LNER depot and line along with the bridge that had crossed the River Trent have all been demolished and little trace of the facilities or the allotment can be seen today.