Lenny Murphy

Hugh Leonard Thompson Murphy (2 March 1952 – 16 November 1982) was a Northern Irish loyalist and UVF officer.

As leader of the Shankill Butchers gang, Murphy was responsible for the murders of mainly Catholic civilians, often first kidnapping and torturing his victims.

The Murphy family changed their residence several times; in 1957 they returned to Joyce's family home in the lower Shankill, at 28 Percy Street.

Murphy did not use his first name "Hugh" possibly because of its close resemblance to the surname "Hughes", common among Irish Catholics, which when coupled with the conspicuously Irish surname Murphy it might have added to the Catholic connotation.

After leaving the Belfast Boys' Model School at sixteen, he joined the Ulster Volunteer Force and was involved in the rioting that broke out in Belfast in August 1969.

In his book The Shankill Butchers, Belfast journalist Martin Dillon suggests Murphy's bigoted Loyalism may have stemmed from his bearing a surname associated with Catholics.

His character was marked by a hatred of Catholics, which he brought into all his conversations, often referring to them as "scum and animals".

He held a steady job as a shop assistant, although his increasing criminal activities enabled him to indulge in a flamboyant lifestyle which involved socialising with an array of young women and heavy drinking.

Prior to the erection of a peace wall in the 1970s, Percy Street ran from the lower Shankill area to the Falls Road.

At Argyle Primary School, he was known for the use of a knife and had his elder brothers to back him up; he logged his first conviction at the age of twelve for theft.

Dillon wrote that it is "incredible to think that Murphy was in fact a murderer at the age of twenty" (1972).

Physically Murphy was below average height, of slim build and sallow complexion, Murphy was blue eyed and had curly dark brown hair.

He sported several tattoos; most of them bearing Ulster loyalist images.

He was a flashy dresser, often wearing a leather jacket and scarf, and occasionally leather driving gloves, similar to those worn by a World War I fighter-pilot.

According to Dillon, Murphy was involved in the torture and murder of four Catholic men as early as 1972.

On 28 September of that year, a Protestant man named William Edward Pavis, who had gone bird shooting with a Catholic priest, was killed at his home in East Belfast.

Pavis had been threatened by loyalists, who accused him of selling firearms to the IRA.

Murphy and an accomplice, Mervyn Connor, were arrested for this crime.

During pre-trial investigations, Murphy was placed in a line-up for possible identification by witnesses to Pavis' shooting.

Before the process began formally, he created a disturbance and stepped out of the line-up.

However, two witnesses picked him out when order was restored.

Connor and Murphy were held in prison together but, in April 1973, before the trial, Connor died after ingesting cyanide in his cell.

He had written a suicide note in which he confessed to the crime and exonerated Murphy.

It is believed Connor was forced to write the note and take the cyanide.

Murphy was sent to trial for the murder of Pavis in June 1973.

Although two witnesses identified him as the gunman, he was acquitted on the basis that their evidence may have been contaminated by the disturbance during the police line-up inquiry.

However, Murphy was re-arrested and jailed for attempted escapes.

On 5 May 1973, inside Crumlin Road prison, he had married 19-year-old Margaret Gillespie, with whom he had a daughter.

He moved his wife and child to Brookmount Street in the upper Shankill, where his parents had a new home.

Murphy spent much of his time drinking in Shankill pubs such as The Brown Bear and Lawnbrook Social Club.

He also frequented the Bayardo Bar in Aberdeen Street.

By May 1975, Murphy, now aged twenty-three, was back on the streets of Belfast.

Due to a lack of evidence, Murphy was never brought to trial for these killings, for which some of his followers had already received long sentences in 1979.

In the summer of 1982, Murphy was released just over half-way through a 12-year sentence for other offences.

He returned to the Shankill Road, where he embarked on a murder spree.

Details of his movements were apparently passed by rival loyalist paramilitaries to the Provisional IRA, who shot Murphy dead that autumn.

Murphy was the youngest of three sons of William and Joyce Murphy from the loyalist Shankill Road, Belfast.

His elder brothers were William Jr. and John.

William Sr. was originally from Fleet Street, Sailortown in the Belfast docks area, where he met Joyce Thompson, who came from the Shankill.

Like his own father (also named William), William Sr. worked as a dock labourer.