Serial child killer could be `freed on parole` after five decades in jail
A man labelled the `Monster of Worcester` for the barbaric murder of three children under the age of five from the same family is being considered for release after more than 40 years in prison.
Jun 8, 2016
By Nick Hudson
A man labelled the `Monster of Worcester` for the barbaric murder of three children under the age of five from the same family is being considered for release after more than 40 years in prison.
The Parole Board for England and Wales has confirmed that the case of child serial killer David McGreavy is “under review”.
McGreavy killed Paul Ralph, four, and his sisters Dawn, two, and nine-month-old Samantha in their home and their mutilated bodies were found impaled on spiked garden railings in the early hours of April 14, 1973.
Paul had been strangled, Dawn was found with her throat cut, and Samantha died from a compound fracture to the skull. The family friend and lodger was jailed for life in the same year.
At McGreavy`s trial, the judge, Mr Justice Ashworth, imposed a life sentence for a crime deemed “so appalling to the Crown, with a minimum term of 20 years.
A Parole Board spokesperson said: “We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board is currently considering the parole review for David McGreavy.
“At this time, we have not received the panel`s decision. We are unable to comment further on the details of this case.”
Dorothy Urry, the 65-year-old mother of the murdered children, said there should be “no question” about ever setting McGreavy free.
“What can I say? Everything I say doesn`t do any good anyway,” she said.
“I`ve wrote to the Parole Board, I [have] done all I can do. They shouldn`t even be considering it. He hasn`t done his time and that`s all there is to it.
“This has been going on for the last seven or eight years I`ve got to fight every year to keep him in prison.
“Why should I have to keep fighting? There should be no question about keeping him in. He should be left in there until he dies and even that`s too much of a luxury for him.”
Speaking to BBC Hereford & Worcester, Ian Furlong was ten years old when his half-brother and sisters were murdered.
He said he realised that McGreavy would eventually be released, but felt the severity of his crimes which have been “a scar on Worcester`s history for a long, long time” should mean he is never freed.
“I`m not happy about it and still don`t understand how a person murders three children and is ever released,” he said.
“You know he didn`t just murder those children, he battered them, he mutilated them, he slashed their throats and threw them out like some sort of trash.
“I really don`t understand how this person could be called a human being.”
Worcester`s MP Robin Walker said he had written to the Ministry of Justice to register his concerns about a potential release from prison.
“Its one of those cases people feel extremely strongly about, given it is such a hideous crime,” he added.
“It is one of those cases where people feel life should mean life.”
McGreavy, aged 21 at the time, had been a lodger at the home of Clive and Dorothy Ralph in March 1973.
The court heard in 1973 on the night of the murders that Mrs Ralph went to work and McGreavy went to the pub.
Mr Ralph also left the house after putting the children to bed and went to collect his wife from work, but first went to get McGreavy to take him home to babysit.
Returning home just before midnight, the couple discovered the house in a mess and blood everywhere.
At around 1.20am, a police officer found the bodies of the three children on metal-spiked railings between gardens in Gillam Street, Rainbow Hill