I have some more information on potential Joseph Hedleys and some leads:
Joe the Quilter was 76 when murdered in Warden Parish. According to one source, he was on Parish Relief from Simonburn Parish from the time of his wife's death in 1817. If I understand the Poor Law of 1795 correctly then there were two criteria for issuing Parish Relief; one was the recipient had to be living in the Parish, the other was that they had to be born in that Parish. That means, Joseph Hedley must have been born in Simonburn Parish. However, he does not appear in the Parish Register, leading me to speculate on 'hidden' registers for those parishes that came from the break up of Simonburn Parish.
There was a Joseph Hedley baptized in John Knox (Presbyterian), Newcastle, in September 1749, but see previous point.
There was also a Joseph Hedley (Shoemaker) in Hexham who was the father of a Joseph Hedley who died in 1805. The father would have been old enough to fit the description, but nowhere have I read that my JH was a shoemaker - he was a well-known Quilter and also a failed Tailor in his youth. There is also no record of the Hexham JH dying in Hexham before 1851, which made me wonder if he moved over to Warden Parish on the death of his son?
A Joseph Hedley was indicted in Durham in 1796, but I think he is probably one of the 3 JH's I found online from Co Durham that might have fitted the bill, but they all have recorded burials and seem to have died better deaths than Joe the Quilter!