‘Midsomer Murderer’ of Colonel Robert Workman jailed for 32 years

Rat-catcher Christopher Docherty-Puncheon shot Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Riley” Workman, 83, outside his home in the Hertfordshire village of Furneux Pelham.

The clinical shooting remained unsolved for years and was described as a real-life Midsomer Murders riddle. The killer, said by the judge to be “an exceptionally dangerous man”, was caught while on remand for another murder.

He told a cellmate he had been paid cash for killing the Second World War veteran, which he then spent on a Range Rover. Docherty-Puncheon said he had used a sawn-off shotgun to kill the man, whom he claimed was both his gay lover and his employer, after he had turned away from him at the entrance to the house.

Docherty-Puncheon also told the cellmate, who cannot be named for legal reasons, where he had hidden the weapon used to kill his other victim, 21-year-old traveller Fred Moss. Police later recovered the firearm which bore Mr Moss’s DNA.

When the witness was moved to a different prison, Docherty-Puncheon’s new cellmate, John Horn, also told police that the killer had confessed to him. Docherty-Puncheon claimed the cellmates were lying and making up “ridiculous stories”.

He told the court that claims he had a sexual relationship with the colonel were made up and a product of village gossip, like something from the TV detective drama Midsomer Murders.

Docherty-Puncheon, 33, from the neighbouring village of Stocking Pelham, had denied murder but jurors at St Albans crown court found him guilty today following a four-week trial. Passing a life sentence, Mr Justice Saunders told him: “Col Workman was 83 when he was shot down. He was unarmed and in poor health. He had neither the capacity nor the opportunity to defend himself.

“He was living out a peaceful retirement in a cottage in a small village in rural Hertfordshire when his life was brutally cut short. It was a terrible crime. Such an event is bound to create feelings of fear among other residents which can continue for a long time. 

“I cannot say for certain what the reason for the attack was. Maybe we will never know.”

Docherty-Puncheon was arrested by police soon after the killing, but released without charge. He was eventually charged in July 2010, following a cold case review. During his 25-year Army career the Lieutenant Colonel, who served with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, was stationed in Canada, Nigeria, Germany and Cyprus and travelled widely in the US.

After retiring from the Royal Green Jackets in 1965, Lt-Col Workman, who was awarded the Burma Star, had worked as an antiques dealer.

During the course of the investigation detectives revealed that Mr Workman had led a double life in the Sixties as a respectable Army officer and as a practising homosexual, which was still illegal. He was married to Gladys Parker, known as Joanna, in 1968, and had been her full-time carer from 1994 until her death just months before his murder.