The Shankill Butchers Read online

  When Moore returned to the Lawnbrook, Murphy told him to take Bates and McAllister and search for Stewart and Balmer. They were to be shot where they were found. Within hours they located Balmer and shot him in the stomach but he survived. Stewart was not found and no further action was taken against him.

  Shaw’s body was discovered by police from C Division at 6.25 P.M. that same day and immediate forensic examination indicated that he was killed 2.6 hours earlier. It is interesting to note the coding formula used by medics to establish the time of death. The formula is the body temperature of the deceased subtracted from normal body temperature and divided by 1.5. In the case of Shaw it was thus:

  Close examination of the body revealed the terrible beating Shaw had received, though Moore was later to attribute the injuries to a ‘kicking’. The injuries were in fact substantial:

  Scalp: 4 serious lacerations.

  Face: lacerations and considerable bruising.

  Neck: bruising.

  Trunk: patchy bruising.

  Right and left upper limbs, right and left lower limbs:

  considerable bruising and abrasions.

  The pathologist’s report also included two details concerning tattoos on the deceased, which are significant only inasmuch as they indicate something of the character of Noel ‘Nogi’ Shaw. On his right lower limb was a tattoo containing the words ‘Long Kesh’, and on the front of his thigh just above the knee was a drawing of a Thompson sub-machine gun with the letters ‘UVF’ tattooed on the outer side of the right calf.

  When the body was found it was transported along with the taxi to Tennent Street police station where both were examined by Jimmy Nesbitt, who discovered four spent 9mm cartridge shells at the bottom of the linen basket. Nesbitt deduced that the place where the body was dumped indicated that it was a Loyalist paramilitary killing, since Shaw was known to be a member of the UVF.

  In the weeks following, Murphy lay low and encouraged his men to do likewise. He also stressed the need for vigilance for fear that a member of the Windsor Bar team should seek to continue the feud. Eventually the Brigade Staff issued orders that the feud was to cease, since they had come to recognize that Murphy was not likely to back down in face of threats from any source.

  Christmas 1975 passed without incident though Murphy had not forgotten his real purpose in life and was constantly stressing to Moore and the others that once New Year arrived the Shaw episode would have been forgotten and they then ‘could get back to killing Taigs’. On the evening of 9 January 1976 Murphy met Moore for drinks in the Burning Bush Club in Ceylon Street off the Shankill Road. He told Moore there was a special job to be done that night, but there was an obstacle concerning his wife Margaret and one of her friends. It transpired that Murphy had promised to collect Margaret and her friend from a club on Belfast’s Shore Road to drive them home. Murphy foresaw the difficulty of extricating himself from his wife’s company and for this reason he wanted Moore to pick up the women and drive them home. Moore agreed to this and Murphy cautioned him not to allow himself to be persuaded to bring them to the Burning Bush but to take them directly home to Brookmount Street. He was then to return quickly to the Burning Bush as he was needed for an operation later that night.

  When Moore arrived at the club where the women were drinking he told Margaret Murphy that Lenny had instructed him to drive her home and that her friend was welcome to join her. Margaret became suspicious and insisted that Moore drive her to the place where Lenny was drinking. She believed her husband was having an affair with another woman and it was her intention to confront him about it in public. Moore stressed that Lenny was engaged ‘in business’ and did not wish to be disturbed. Margaret Murphy, however, was not to be deterred and prevailed upon Moore with cajoling, and eventually threats, to take her to meet Lenny. Moore relented under the pressure and drove her and her friend to the Burning Bush. When they arrived Lenny was standing at the bar talking to associates and there was no woman near him. He addressed a terse ‘hello’ to his wife and instructed her to leave the bar and walk home because he was busy. Margaret Murphy did not argue with her husband and meekly left the premises with her friend.

  Lenny took Moore aside and pointed to two men drinking at the bar who he said were members of the Ulster Defence Regiment. He singled out one of them, describing him as a frequent visitor to Loyalist bars and added that this man was always armed. He told Moore that he intended killing a Taig and that it would be preferable to use a ‘clean weapon’. This contention about a ‘clean weapon’ exemplifies his ability to analyse, in advance, the risk of using a UVF weapon which, if forensically tested, might link him to other murders which he had or had not committed. He explained his thinking to Moore and pointed out that UVF men had been apprehended with guns used in other operations and a forensic test on the weapons had been enough to convict them of murders committed by others. In his opinion, he told Moore, it was better to get caught with a ‘clean weapon’ so that if apprehended before a murder they would simply be charged with theft and firearms possession or, after a murder, with only one killing.

  According to Moore, Murphy told him that it was his intention to take the UDR man’s gun, though questions arise about this account in the light of subsequent events. However, it is interesting to look at Moore’s account of events as they developed once Murphy decided to steal the UDR man’s gun. Moore says that Murphy took one of the UDR men into the toilet of the club, threatened him, took his weapon and fired a shot close to his head. The UDR man in question was John McFarland Fletcher from Belfast, a twenty-one-year-old sergeant and this is the account he gave to the police:

  At 2.30 A.M. on 10 January I was in the toilet of the Burning Bush with a friend, John Lockhart, when two men came in. Each man had his face covered with a scarf and one of them pointed a pistol at my head and pushed me back. He then searched me and took my issue Walther pistol and holster from the waistband of my trousers. He then turned me round and put the gun to the back of my head and pushed me out of the toilet and then through the door and onto the street. He made me lie down on waste ground at the side of the club. He asked me who I was, where I lived, and I think I told him. There was a shot fired close to my head while I was lying on the ground, head down. I was then put into the back of a black London-type taxi and made to lie face down on the floor. I was driven off by three men, the driver and two in the back with me. I was taken to a house where I was questioned. I was then taken to the taxi and driven around for a while and then released. The person who attacked me in the toilet was five feet nine inches with darkish hair nearly shoulder-length. He was wearing a black three-quarters-length leather coat. I only got a glimpse of the other fellow and I would not be able to describe him. I am sure the person who stole my gun had spoken to me while I was drinking in the club. After they released me I went straight to the police station at Tennent Street. When I was released by these men I was told that if I said anything about what had happened I would be shot.

  This statement was not made until almost one month later and prompts many questions. The man was after all a regular visitor to Loyalist clubs in the Shankill area and he spoke to both Moore and Murphy at the bar and accepted drinks from them. He was in a position to describe them. His description of Murphy was misleading and he failed to describe the other ‘assailant’. Moore confirms that Murphy deliberately picked a quarrel with the UDR man, removed the gun from him and fired a round close to his head but he makes no mention of taking him to a house or driving him around in a taxi.

  It is possible that the UDR man was indeed driven to a house, probably Murphy’s. He did not report the theft of the pistol for three hours, which allowed Murphy time to use it. In 1988 the same UDR man was imprisoned for the theft of weapons from a UDR armoury housed in a British Army base at Holywood, outside Belfast. At his trial he pleaded that his actions resulted from mental instability caused by his imprisonment by the Shankill Butchers in 1976. At the time of his trial this plea went unnoti
ced and journalists were unaware of the details concerning the episode so there remain unanswered questions about this matter, such as why no attempt was made at the time to examine closely the credibility of a UDR sergeant who drank in a Loyalist para-military meeting place while armed. Murphy told Moore that he wished to be driven to North Belfast and in particular the Cliftonville Road area where they would shoot a Taig. It is interesting to note that Murphy felt confident that he could be driven by Moore through a sensitive area of North Belfast while armed with a pistol, but it was perhaps frustration that spurred him to take such action. After all, his lust for killing had not been satisfied since the shooting of Shaw. ‘I’m goin’ to kill a Taig and the best place to find one is in the Cliftonville Road,’ he told Moore before they set off from Brookmount Street.

  The Cliftonville Road had been a killing ground for Loyalist paramilitaries in 1972. This came about because of the violence of the early 1970s when Catholics were burned out of their homes. This in turn created fear in both communities to the extent that many Protestants moved out of North Belfast and displaced Catholics moved in. In subsequent years Protestant families continued to feel threatened by an expanding Catholic community in the district, with the result that the Cliftonville Road became virtually a Catholic ghetto. Until the beginning of the present conflict in 1979 the road had been a middle-class area housing mostly Protestants who began to witness increasing violence in several Catholic districts which bordered the Cliftonville Road. The road also provided easy access between Catholic and Protestant ghettoes which, in turn, made it dangerous. However, once the majority of residents were Catholics the area became a killing ground for roaming gangs from the UDA and UVF.

  Murphy, with his history of killing going back to the early seventies and his geographical knowledge of Belfast, was aware of the potential the Cliftonville Road offered. A favourable feature for a killer was the fact that the road was only minutes from the Shankill and other Loyalist strongholds and it rose steeply, the brow of it providing a panoramic view and thus an excellent way of spotting the presence of Army or police patrols. Another advantage from Murphy’s point of view was that the district was controlled by RUC Division D, where he would not be as readily identifiable to police patrols as a UVF suspect.

  As requested by Murphy, in the early hours of that morning, Moore drove him along the Cliftonville Road and through adjoining streets and avenues in search of a victim. The time was such that the only people likely to be walking the streets would be drunks returning home, and drunks were easy prey.

  At 3.30 A.M. Murphy asked Moore to make a final sweep of the Cliftonville Road in a last ditch effort to find a victim. As they drove down the road towards Manor Street Murphy saw a blind man feeling his way along the pavement with a white stick and with a dog leading him. He told Moore to stop so that he could get out and shoot the man but, simultaneously, Moore spotted another figure one hundred yards away. He pointed out the figure to Murphy who immediately forgot the blind man and asked Moore to drive slowly along the road. They both quickly realized that the person was in fact female but Murphy insisted ‘she would do’. The girl was twenty-one-year-old Deirdre Assumpta McQuaid, who had left a party at a friend’s flat on the Cliftonville Road. At the moment he spotted her, Moore was unaware that her husband, Ted, was urinating in a nearby garden.

  Deirdre McQuaid, in her account of the events which followed, neglects to mention that she argued with her husband about the route they should take on their way home. She makes no mention either, probably due to embarrassment, that she was standing on the Cliftonville Road waiting for her husband while he urinated. This waiting period allowed Murphy and Moore the opportunity to drive past and assess the situation. In retrospect there was little Deirdre McQuaid or anyone could have done to prevent what happened. She later gave this account to police:

  There were quite a number of people at the party and Ted and I were dancing, having an odd drink and chatting to people. Ted knew most of the people there as quite a lot of them worked with him at the Department of Health and Social Services. At about 3.30 A.M. Ted and I decided to go home. I left Ted to get his coat and I walked slowly downstairs and onto the pavement at the front of the house. I noticed a black taxi driving slowly past on the opposite side of the road. It turned left into a side street and disappeared from view. It reappeared from a side street opposite where I was standing and turned right before driving down the Cliftonville Road. Ted arrived and he and I began walking down the Cliftonville Road. The taxi suddenly came up the road again. I told Ted I thought this was strange because the taxi had driven up the Cliftonville Road a short time previously. Suddenly the taxi drove past us going in our direction and I saw it stop a short distance in front of us. I said to Ted about the taxi but he did not seem to be alarmed. Ted was between the taxi and me. The door opened and a young man got out and started walking towards us. He was swaying about as if he was drunk and I said to Ted, ‘It’s okay, he’s drunk.’ Suddenly he put his left hand inside his jacket and pulled out a small gun which he pointed at Ted and started firing. He never looked at me but kept shooting at Ted. Ted fell to the ground but he just kept shooting. I threw my handbag at him but he jumped into the taxi and drove off at speed. I went to Ted and he said, ‘Run, Deirdre!’ I started screaming for help and ran back to the flat.

  This account illustrates the unfortunate victim’s naivety with regard to the district in which he was walking that night and his neglect of his wife’s suspicions about the taxi. Had he listened to her he might be alive today. Deirdre McQuaid also failed to mention that she argued with her husband about the constant presence of the taxi and this could explain why, at the moment the taxi stopped alongside them, he was walking slightly ahead in angry mood. However, once shot, his thoughts were for the safety of his wife. One can only guess why Murphy did not kill Deirdre McQuaid. He was not, in fact, drunk when he alighted from the taxi. This pretence was a ploy to allay any fear Ted McQuaid might have had so that he would not have felt the need to run away. It gave Murphy time to take aim. His aim was good and the first bullet struck Ted McQuaid on the chin and the second on the chest. Four subsequent bullets were fired into him as he lay on the ground.

  A nightwatchman in a nearby school witnessed the shooting but proved an unreliable witness when he described the murderers’ getaway car as a dark blue mini. A patrol of British soldiers was quickly on the scene and placed a cordon around the prone figure of Ted McQuaid. The soldiers found themselves harassed by revellers from the party who, on learning that their friend had been shot, arrived on the scene and tried to remove Ted McQuaid – although seriously wounded he was still breathing. An ambulance was summoned and arrived within ten minutes but Ted McQuaid died on arrival at the Mater Hospital a short distance away.

  Moore later tried to distance himself from the crime by pointing out that he dissuaded Murphy from shooting the blind man, hoping perhaps to create the impression that to do so would have been a greater crime than killing Deirdre McQuaid and her husband. This once again illustrates the bizarre perceptions which often motivate killers in a conflict such as that in Northern Ireland. Murphy on this occasion was prepared to shoot anyone, man, woman or child, or a blind man, as long as he could reasonably establish the religion of the victim, whereas Moore was prepared to make a distinction, not from any normally understood sense of morality but within the definition of a ‘fair target’ in battle-hardened Northern Ireland terms. The distinction which Moore sought to emphasize says a great deal about prevailing views within paramilitary circles and how such views often find expression in the way society itself views terrorism. Frequently in Northern Ireland people are willing to condemn vociferously those crimes which directly affect their own community but are passively silent when the other community suffers grief. Generally there is too much tacit acceptance of violence, and condemnation becomes an intrinsic part of the conflict and loses positive effect except, perhaps, when a crime of such proportion is committed that
it cries out for denunciation. Such an example would be the IRA bombing of Enniskillen. Yet’ UDR personnel, police, Army and civilians from both sides are killed daily. It could have been a subconscious awareness of these features of his society that made Moore dissuade Murphy from killing the blind man. This incident expresses for me the complexities of this particular society.

  The two events of 9 and 10 January 1976 were connected and the RUC should have recognized the fact within twenty-four hours. The reported theft of a pistol and a spent .22 cartridge at the spot where McQuaid was shot should have, at the very least, aroused suspicion. Fletcher says he told police about a black taxi being used in his abduction, as did Deirdre McQuaid. From my investigations I found that no such connection was made. I enquired whether Deirdre McQuaid had been shown mugshots of suspected terrorists, since Lenny Murphy would have been on file, and the police told me it was quite likely. A range of such photographs would have been prepared by RUC Headquarters and made available to detectives in D Division so that she would have had an opportunity to identify the killer.

  It is difficult so many years on to verify what happened and I have no reason to doubt the RUC version that such a procedure took place, although I was unable to trace Deirdre McQuaid and speak to her. She was the one person who would have been able to identify Murphy and the description she gave to the police was more accurate than the one supplied by Fletcher. My contention is that once again there was a distinct lack of communication and exchange of information between D Division and C Division. Fletcher was interviewed in C Division and Deirdre McQuaid in D Division, and it was not until some of the Butchers were caught that it became clear that the Fletcher incident and the McQuaid killing were linked.