Hugh Leonard Thompson Murphy, who commonly went by the name Lenny Murphy (March 2, 1952 - November 16, 1982) was a terrorist from Belfast, Northern Ireland who was the leader of the Shankill Butchers. Although never convicted of murder, Murphy is suspected of killing up to fifteen people and ordering the deaths of several others.

Early Life

He was born in 1952 to a Protestant family, the youngest of three sons. At school he was remembered as a bully and a thief, and logged his first conviction at the age of twelve for theft. After leaving school when he was sixteen he joined the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary. The Loyalists were those who believed Northern Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom and were predominantly from the Protestant population of the province. This was in contrast to the Nationalist/Republicans - primarily made up of members of the Catholic population - who wanted Northern Ireland to be united with the Republic of Ireland and to sever ties to the United Kingdom.

Although tension had been simmering for some time in the province, the Northern Irish Troubles, as they became known, reached the point of violent conflict by 1969.

Murphy had a fanatical hatred of Catholics and seemed to believe in the false syllogism that, because the Republican paramilitaries such as the Irish Republican Army were made up of Catholics, then therefore all Catholics were Republican terrorists.

In his book The Shankill Butchers, Martin Dillon suggests Murphy was involved in the torture and murder of four Catholic men in 1972.

First Crimes

On September 28, 1972, a man named William Pavis was shot dead at his home by Loyalists because he was alleged to have sold firearms to the IRA. Murphy was arrested for this crime along with an accomplice, Marvyn Conner. They were held in prison together but before the trial, Conner was killed by cyanide in his cell after writing a suicide note in which he confessed to the crime and exonerated Murphy. It was apparant that Conner had been forced to write the note before being forcibly fed the cyanide by Murphy, but there was not enough evidence to charge him. The case against Murphy for the murder of Pavis subsequently collapsed.

By 1975, Murphy was twenty-three and back on the outside. He was married with a daughter but spent all his time drinking in the bars of the Loyalist-dominated area, the Shankill Road. He soon formed a gang that would be known as the Shankill Butchers, his right-hand-man being William Moore.

The gang are believed to have killed four Catholics during a robbery in October 1975 and over the next few months began to abduct, torture and murder Catholics they dragged off the streets late at night, Murphy hacking the victim's throats open with a butcher knife. They killed four Catholic men this way and shot dead three others. None of the victims had any connection to Republican terorism. The Butcher's were also involved in the murder of a rival Loyalist. In fact it is thought that Murphy was not well liked by those higher up in the UVF because he was out of control and his brutal slayings of innocent Catholics damaged the UVF's claim that it was only waging war against Republican terrorists and their backers.

Imprisonment

On March 13, 1976, Murphy shot and injured a young Catholic woman. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder but was able to get a plea bargain whereby he was allowed to just plead guilty to the lesser charge of a firearms offence. He was sentenced to six-years. He was the prime suspect in the Shankill Butcher murders and to divert suspicion he is believed to have relayed orders to the rest of the gang to continue their murders.

The Shankill Butchers, under the command of William Moore, went on to kill and mutilate at least four more Catholics before they were arrested and, in 1979, imprisoned. Many confessed to their crimes but although they named Murphy as the leader, they retracted those parts of their statements out of sheer terror of Murphy, who was questioned once again about the Butcher murders but refused to confess.

Death

After his sentence on the firearm charge was complete, Lenny Murphy walked out of prison in January 1982. He is suspected of killing three more people over the next ten-months.

On November 16 that year, Murphy was shot twenty-six times and killed in East Belfast. The IRA claimed responsibility but there have been rumours that Murphy's own men in the UVF assisted them to dispose of a mutual problem.

References

The Shankill Butchers', Martin Dillon, 1989

Also See

• Shankill Butchers

• William Moore

• Ulster Volunteer Force