The Shankill Butchers

by Martin Dillon

  Within six weeks of his release from prison Murphy had pieced together a new unit and had enough money to make a down payment on a large, second-hand Rover car. The car was purchased from a showroom in Bangor run by thirty-year-old Brian Smyth who, until 1978, had been a member of the West Belfast UVF. Murphy told Smyth that he would pay the remainder of the debt within one month.

  On the Shankill Road Murphy became a familiar sight as he drove around in his large Rover, appearing to all as a flashy and well-heeled terrorist. He found himself a girlfriend who lived in the Glencairn Housing Estate but he continued to maintain a home at 65 Brookmount Street while his previous house at number 74 was being refurbished by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, who were carrying out the rehabilitation of housing in the area. Murphy’s parents and his brother William were still living at 12 Brookmount Street, but his brother John resided elsewhere in the Shankill area. Murphy began spending a lot of time with his new girlfriend, Hilary Thompson, who was in her late twenties and well aware of Lenny’s reputation. Hilary Thompson has since gone to live in Larnarkshire in Scotland with an ex-member of the UDR, who left Northern Ireland because he feared his life was in danger.

  Murphy did not restrict his social life to the Shankill Road but would make frequent visits to pubs in the centre of Belfast and would also be seen at other pubs and discos around town. Jim Cusack, an experienced investigative journalist with the Irish Times, recalls seeing Murphy in a bar and says that he was always well dressed and behaved like a man about town. According to Cusack, Murphy was known to many young people who were unaware of his violent history, and while in bars the Butcher would frequently joke with other customers. His lavish lifestyle did not, however, go unnoticed in paramilitary circles, where it was resented because of its brash, public display. The Brigade Staff became concerned by the fact that Murphy was adopting an image which was not in keeping with a member of the UVF in a working-class neighbourhood such as the Shankill.

  As far as his car was concerned, Murphy decided not to fulfil his promise to pay Smyth the remainder of the money due, and as a result Smyth telephoned Murphy on 9 August and indicated that he would visit him to collect the sum owing to him. Murphy was affronted and embarrassed at the prospect of Smyth accosting him publicly about the debt but he reluctantly agreed to meet the car dealer in the Rumford Street Social Club to discuss the matter. Smyth travelled by car to the club one evening, accompanied by two friends, one of whom was Samuel Carroll. The meeting with Murphy degenerated quickly into an abusive exchange between Murphy and Smyth, with Murphy stressing that it was unwise to demand money, but that the debt would be paid in several days. As if to seal this agreement, Murphy handed Smyth a drink but after a few sips Smyth became violently ill and was ushered into the toilets at the rear of the Club. When he emerged, Murphy was no longer on the premises. Smyth told Carroll that he was convinced Murphy had tried to poison him and that he was fortunate not to have taken more than a few sips of the drink. At 10 P.M. Smyth asked his companions to drive him to the Mater Hospital. He still felt ill and wished to be examined because he was convinced that there was poison remaining in his body. As the three men drove down the Shankill Road towards the hospital, Smyth remarked to Carroll that a motorcycle was following their car. As Carroll turned the car into Crimea Street, the motorcycle pulled alongside and the pillion passenger signalled to Carroll to stop which he did. Carroll gave this version of the events which followed to police: ‘There had been bother that evening and we thought someone wanted to pursue the matter. Brian and myself got out of the car and our friend was asleep on the back seat. I saw the silhouette of a man and there were shots.’

  In fact there were eight shots fired directly into Smyth, killing him instantly. Carroll later told a Coroner’s Court that the RUC held him for three days after the shooting and suggested that he lured Smyth to Belfast to be shot. Carroll said he firmly denied this. He told police that Murphy had given him an assurance that he (Murphy) had not been involved in the killing. The Coroner, James Elliott, said it was a peculiar case and newspaper reports attributed the killing to an internal feud between Loyalist paramilitaries. C Division of the RUC quickly clarified the matter, suggesting that the killing was not the result of a feud but rather a personal dispute between members of the UVF. There is little doubt that the murder squad in Tennent Street harboured suspicions that Murphy was implicated and so did the UVF Brigade Staff. The Brigade Staff carried out an internal inquiry but were unable to establish the motive or identity of the murderer. Those within the UVF who suspected Murphy were worried that he was again showing that he was beyond their control, and was creating problems for them at a time when they considered morale was high within their organization. Murphy, in their view, was also bringing what one informant described to me as ‘heat’ into the Shankill, meaning the presence of additional police making enquiries and interviewing suspects. The man who shot Smyth was, in fact, Murphy and the killing had all the hallmarks of the motorcycle murder of Pavis ten years earlier.

  On the morning of 22 October, fifty-four-year-old Tommy Cochrane bade goodbye to his wife, Lily, and their twenty-six-year-old son, Glen, and drove from his home in the Glenanne area of County Armagh towards the linen factory, where he had been employed since leaving school. Tommy Cochrane was known to friends and neighbours as a quiet, inoffensive man who spent much of his spare time patrolling the Border areas as a part-time soldier in the Ulster Defence Regiment. His wife was a district nurse and the couple were regular churchgoers who were respected for their community work. After joining the UDR in 1970 Cochrane quickly reached the rank of sergeant. The area in which he lived, like many rural parts of Northern Ireland which span the border with the Irish Republic, has been a killing ground where the IRA has murdered hundreds of UDR men as well as Protestants not involved in the Regiment. The remoteness of the area, coupled with the fact that many people who are potential targets for the IRA live in isolated hamlets, has made County Armagh one of the most violent areas of Northern Ireland. In recognition of this problem facing his community Tommy Cochrane joined the UDR and thus came to the attention of the Provisional IRA, since much of his work involved not just patrolling the border but also manning roadblocks and searching vehicles and pedestrians. On 22 October, he never reached his place of work but was abducted by the IRA, who issued a statement to the media claiming that they were holding him ‘for interrogation because of his crimes against the Nationalist community’. Over the next twenty-four hours appeals for his release were made by politicians and churchmen to the IRA and its political wing Sinn Fein. Lily and Glenn Cochrane were held in tragic suspense because there was no response from the IRA and no way of knowing what terror Tommy might be suffering at the hands of his captors. The IRA’s use of the word ‘interrogation’ carried its own terrible implications. The Cochrane family had known the meaning of grief when ten of Tommy Cochrane’s Protestant workmates were murdered by the IRA in the Kingsmill massacre. Tommy was fortunate not to have been travelling with them in the minibus on the day they were shot.

  On Saturday evening, 23 October Lenny Murphy was again drinking in the Rumford Street Club. His conversation switched to the kidnapping of Cochrane, who was still held captive. With Murphy were men who had recently become associated with him: William Mahood, Noel Large, William ‘Wingnut’ Cowan, and another man who, for legal reasons, will henceforth be referred to as Mr M. and who until this period had had no connection with any of the crimes described in this book. Mahood and Cowan were members of the UVF, while the twenty-five-year-old Noel Large, like Murphy himself, had joined the UVF in his teens to become a ruthless terrorist with a long history of crime. Large was married with a baby girl and lived in East Belfast and, although not strictly under Murphy’s control, he was willing to operate alongside him. Murphy walked away from his companions and was seen talking to other members of the UVF from the Shankill area. He proposed to them that they should kidnap a Catholic and hold him to ransom against t
he release of Cochrane. Murphy could not find any agreement to his suggestion and a heated debate ensued which resulted in him storming out of the club and motioning to his companions to follow his example. Outside, he held an impromptu meeting which was attended by the UVF men with whom he had discussed the proposal a few minutes earlier. Murphy explained once more that if they were to hijack a taxi and pick up a Taig they could hold him hostage on the basis that they would release him in return for the IRA releasing the UDR sergeant. A further argument ensued and it was pointed out to Murphy that the IRA might already have killed Cochrane and, even if not, the UVF would permit no such deal. Murphy walked away, signalling to Cowan to follow him. Mahood remained in the club while Large went in search of some takeaway food.

  Murphy’s plan was more daring than the one he described. He intended to hijack a black taxi on the Shankill Road and drive it to the Falls Road, where he would abduct a Catholic. Black taxis plied their trade on the Falls Road in much the same way as on the Shankill and potential passengers would simply wave them down. In this way Murphy believed he could pose as a bona fide taxi driver. The Falls Taxi Association, like the corresponding Association on the Shankill, operated on the basis of its members purchasing London-type cabs and picking up passengers at random on the street. Yet there was nothing to indicate that a particular taxi belonged to the Falls Association, and those who hailed taxis on either road would assume that they were being driven by members of the Association which operated in that district. Murphy decided, however, that Cowan should drive the taxi while he remained in the rear seat, as he had done on other occasions when he had killed people. It would be Murphy’s task to deal with the ‘passenger’ as soon as the taxi was requested to stop.

  At midnight, with two female passengers on board, Oliver Stephen Patrick drove his taxi down the Shankill Road. Patrick had hired the taxi several months previously from the North Belfast Mutual Association. As the taxi passed Rumford Street, Patrick was waved down by two men who got into the vehicle alongside the two women. After a short distance the two women got out of the vehicle, whereupon the two male passengers threatened Patrick and ordered him to drive to the Rumford Street Club. Outside the club, Patrick was ordered to get out of the taxi and walk away but not to report the theft until the following day. Patrick walked to his brother-in-law’s house and was driven home. As instructed, he did not report the theft of his taxi until 8.30 A.M. the following day. This failure was later described in an internal police document as follows: ‘You may feel that he did not act in the role of a good citizen and his actions may well have come within the meaning of Section 5 (I) Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967.’ No charges were brought against Patrick. Everyone who lives in Northern Ireland is conscious of the fear which terrorists can engender. In Patrick’s case, he may well have been concerned about the risk not only to himself but to his family if he disobeyed Murphy’s orders. Driving on the Shankill, as Patrick did every day, it is likely that he knew of Murphy’s reputation and was too frightened to play the role of the good citizen.

  Cowan drove Murphy along the Falls Road from the direction of Millfield as arranged. On this occasion Murphy was not armed nor was he carrying the customary wheel brace.

  Earlier that evening forty-eight-year-old Joseph Donegan, an unemployed joiner with seven children, was at home talking with his wife. Donegan, a Catholic born in the Lower Falls area into a family of thirteen children, had married his wife, Eileen, in 1955 and the first years of their marriage were spent in lodgings on the Falls Road. When their first child was due, Joseph and Eileen Donegan had acquired a small two-bedroomed house in Balkan Street in the Lower Falls, where all their seven children were born. In 1972, an IRA bomb intended for an Army patrol exploded three doors away from their home and Joseph Donegan decided to move his family to the Ballymurphy housing estate in West Belfast. But he remained fond of the Lower Falls area and during five years of unemployment between 1977 and 1982 he paid weekly visits to pubs and clubs in the Lower Falls.

  At 8.30 P.M. on 23 October Joseph Donegan received a phone call from his friend, James Quinn, inviting him for a drink in the Pound Loney Club in Cullingtree Road in the Lower Falls. Quinn remembers Donegan entering the club at 9.00 P.M.: ‘He was in good form and didn’t appear to have taken drink. We talked, had a game of pool and a few drinks. Frank Gillan came into the club and joined us. We left the club at ten, went to a music hall nearby and had some more drink. I was drinking pints of lager and Joe was drinking bottles of Guinness. Until he left at 12.10 A.M. Joe would have had one pint of Guinness and twelve bottles of it. He didn’t have any more to drink than normal that night and he wasn’t drunk. He left on his own while I was in the toilet. When he normally left the club, Joe walked up Albert Street onto the Falls Road, where he would look for a taxi or walk along the Falls until one came along.’

  Joseph Donegan rarely talked about events in Northern Ireland. He was not involved politically and rarely voted. But he was aware of the dangers which existed and often pointed out to his children that many people had been killed simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. His daughter Anne, a journalist with the Irish News, confirms that her father was not politically minded and all he enjoyed was ‘a game of pool, a drink and a smoke’.

  As he walked along the Falls Road, Joseph Donegan must have been unaware that there was any danger of his being abducted. He waved to an oncoming taxi which happened to be the one with Murphy riding in the back seat. Murphy did not get out but waited until Donegan stepped into the taxi and closed the door. As Cowan swung the taxi towards Millfield and the Shankill Road, Murphy launched his attack. Donegan put up a fierce struggle, and by the time the taxi reached Brookmount Street its rear windows were covered with blood. Murphy went berserk, beating Donegan into submission and forcing him onto the floor of the taxi, where he kicked him repeatedly.

  The taxi stopped outside Murphy’s former residence at 65 Brookmount Street which was now vacant. Cowan dragged Donegan from the vehicle while Murphy held open the door. They took the injured man into the kitchen area of the house and Murphy told Cowan to ‘hold the Taig’ while he walked across the street to his new home and returned with a spade and a pair of pliers. Donegan was still resisting but was savagely beaten again by both men. Cowan was then told to drive to the Rumford Street Club and to fetch Mr M. When Cowan returned, both he and Mr M. watched as Murphy continued to beat and torture Donegan. Murphy used the pliers to pull many of Donegan’s teeth from their roots. Finally he dragged Donegan, who was still alive, onto the concrete floor in the yard at the rear of the house. He handed the spade to Mr M. and told him to ‘finish off the Taig’ but to wait until he had regained consciousness and then ask him who he was. In his frenzy, Murphy had forgotten to find out his victim’s name, which he needed if he was to make phone calls to bargain for Cochrane’s release. He had no intention of keeping Donegan alive, and at no stage, I believe, would he have prevented himself beating and torturing his victim. However, he was prepared to maintain a pretence that his hostage was alive.

  By 12.30 A.M. the police were searching for Donegan after his nineteen-year-old daughter, Briege, reported her father’s disappearance. Meanwhile Murphy and Cowan left Mr M. with Donegan and made their way in the taxi to Rumford Street so that Murphy could make his proposed telephone calls. Before the taxi reached the club, Cowan saw Large walking along the pavement and stopped the vehicle. What follows is a record of a conversation Large later had with police which describes the moment he met Murphy and Cowan. This account is taken from police interview notes:

  The defendant Large stated that as he left a chippy, a black taxi stopped and Lenny called him over. The defendant was asked where Lenny was in the taxi and he stated that he was in the back. The defendant was asked who was driving and he hesitated and then said, ‘Wingnut’. The defendant stated that he then got into the back of the taxi beside Lenny and the rear windows had blood on them and he asked Lenny where it came from
and was informed that they had got a Taig on the Falls Road and he was in Lenny’s house. The defendant was asked where the house was and he said he did not know but it was somewhere off the Shankill. The defendant went on to say that Lenny sent him into the house to find out the man’s name and age. Wingnut and Lenny headed off in the taxi. In reply to further questions the defendant stated that Lenny had given him a key and he used it to open the front door. The defendant went on to say that he went to the backyard, which was covered in, but there were no lights. He saw the figure of a man standing in the backyard and he went over to speak to him and tripped over something. The defendant said he asked the man where the Taig was and the man replied: ‘You have just walked over him.’ The defendant then stated that he looked down and could see what he thought was the figure of a man on the ground. The defendant said he could hear the man breathing heavily and groaning and from the smell he knew the man had shit himself. When further questioned, the defendant stated that he told the other man to ask the man his name and age. The man did not answer. The other man told the defendant that the Taig had put up a fight when being taken into the house and got a beating. At one stage they thought he had taken a heart attack. The other man then told the defendant that he did not think the man could hear him when he asked for his name and age. The defendant then said that when the man on the ground did not answer, the other man started to beat him with the spade. He was asked where the Catholic was being hit and he said it was ‘round the head’. The defendant said that during the time the man was being beaten, the spade broke. The defendant was asked who was doing the beating and he replied. . . . [Large gave detectives at this point a surname bastardized by the addition of the letters ‘ie’]. The defendant was then asked for the proper name and stated that he did not know but he came from the Balysillan area. The defendant said he told Mr M. to stop beating the Catholic when the shaft broke because he, the defendant, thought the Catholic was dead at that stage. The defendant was asked where the shaft broke and he lifted a pen and paper that he had been doodling on and drew a diagram resembling a spade with a wavy line at the top of the shaft, close to the handle and stated that that was where the shaft broke. The defendant went on to say that when the shaft broke, he told Mr M. that he thought the Catholic was dead. The defendant said that if he was to make a statement he could not name names because he would ‘be done in prison’. He was asked what he did after Donegan died and he said they waited in the yard for ten minutes.