Daniel Morgan

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

metropolitan-police

Offense Location:

Sydenham, London, England

Summary:

Daniel John Morgan (3 November 1949 – 10 March 1987) was a British private investigator who was murdered with an axe in a pub car park in Sydenham, London, in 1987. He was a married father of two on the 10th of March, 1987, when he was found murdered in the car park of the Golden Lion pub located on Sydenham Road, London. Despite several Metropolitan Police investigations, arrests, and trial, the crime remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

The night he was killed he had a 90-minute meeting with his business partner Jonathan Rees at the Golden Lion. At 9pm he left by a back entrance to get to the car park, a Rolex watch on his wrist and £1,100 in his pocket. He had been struck three times in the back of the head with an axe, killing him instantly. Lying prone dead on the floor, a fourth blow was struck embedding the axe in his face and severing his brain stem. He was found dead at 9.40pm by the side of his car next to two packets of Golden Wonder crisps he had brought for his children. The Rolex was missing but the cash remained.

Additional Details:

He had attended agricultural school in South Wales and worked in sales and travel in Denmark before setting up a private investigation business called Southern Investigations in London in 1984. His business specialised in divorces, recovery of hire purchase goods and serving court orders. At the time of his death, Morgan worked for Southern Investigations, a company he had founded with his business partner Jonathan Rees. Rees was arrested in April 1987 on suspicion of murder along with Morgan's future replacement at Southern, Detective Sergeant Sid Fillery, and two brothers, Glenn and Garry Vian. All were released without charge. On 25 April 1988, the jury delivered their verdict that Daniel Morgan had been unlawfully killed. In 2009 Rees, Fillery, the Vian Brothers and a builder, James Cook, appeared at the Old Bailey charged with Morgan's murder. The trial collapsed in 2011 after evidence obtained from supergrasses was deemed inadmissible by the court. Between 1987 and 2011, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and other forces arrested 67 people in connection with the murder. Eight of those arrested had been police officers. An independent review into the handling of the investigation of Morgan's killing was published in 2021; it found that the Met Police had "a form of institutional corruption" which had concealed or denied failings in the case. His family claim he was on the verge of exposing police corruption. In his late 20s, he married Iris and they moved to Norwood, South London, where they went on to raise their two children Sarah and Daniel.

Case Last Updated:

Aug 19, 2026