Lenny Murphy - Shankill Butchers Murders

Shankill Butchers Murders

The gang shot dead four Catholics (two men and two women) during a robbery at a warehouse in October 1975. Over the next few months Murphy and his accomplices began to abduct, torture and murder random Catholic men they dragged off the streets late at night. Murphy regarded the use of a blade as the "ultimate way to kill", ending the torture by hacking each victim's throat open with a butcher's knife. By February 1976 the gang had killed three Catholic men in this manner. Murphy achieved status though his paramilitary activity and was widely known in the Shankill. Many regarded his crimes as shaming the community but feared the consequences of testifying against him. None of the victims had any connection to the IRA, and there was suspicion among some of their families that the murders were not properly investigated because those being killed were Catholics.

The Butchers were also involved in the murder of Noel Shaw, a loyalist from a rival UVF unit, who had shot dead Butcher gang-member Archie Waller in Downing Street, off the Shankill Road, in November 1975. Four days before his death, Waller had been involved in the abduction and murder of the Butchers' first victim, Francis Crossen. One day after Waller's death, Shaw was beaten and pistol-whipped by Murphy while strapped to a chair, then shot. His body was later dumped in a back street off the Shankill.

By the end of 1975, the UVF Brigade Staff had a new leadership of "moderates", but Murphy refused to submit to their authority, preferring to carry out attacks by his own methods. Dillon suggested that whilst some of the Brigade Staff knew about Murphy's activities (albeit not the precise details), they were too frightened of him and his gang to put a stop to them.

On 10 January 1976, Murphy and Moore killed a Catholic man, Edward McQuaid (25), on the Cliftonville Road. Murphy, alighting from Moore's taxi in the small hours, shot the man six times at close range.