Man jailed for 1994 grandmother murder
Shirley Leach had been visiting her sick daughter on the day she was killed
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Thursday, 30, Nov 2006 07:59
A 38-year-old man has today been jailed for life for the horrific murder and sexual assault of a 66-year-old grandmother more than 12 years ago.
Ian O'Callaghan, of Wragby Close in Bury, Greater Manchester, was found guilty of murdering Shirley Leach in January 1994 after a four-day trial at Manchester crown court.
The court heard how he sexually assaulted and then strangled the Bury grandmother to death and left her body in a toilet cubicle at Bury bus station.
He is then thought to have cut off one of her breasts with a broken bottle about half an hour after her death. Her body was found in the early hours of January 7th and her right breast has never been recovered.
Ms Leach's killer was only brought to justice because he was stopped by traffic police on February 18th this year and breathalysed. He gave a positive breath test and was arrested on suspicion of driving whilst under the influence of excess alcohol.
His DNA was subsequently loaded on to the national DNA database and matched that found at the murder scene more than a decade earlier.
Ms Leach had been visiting her daughter Beryl Linton, who has now died, at Fairfield hospital on the day she was killed.
Former Detective Superintendent Bill Roberts, who investigated the murder in 1994, said: "This was a horrendously brutal murder of an elderly woman who posed no threat to anyone.
"Shirley was of petite build and wouldn't have been able to put up much of a fight against her attacker. The murder sent shockwaves through the community in Bury and the surrounding areas."
He added that the fact that the murder had remained unsolved for so long had greatly affected him during the last 12 years.
"I honestly believed that Shirley's murderer was dead or had left the country," he continued.
"When I got the call to tell me that O'Callaghan had been arrested I was very, very surprised. I know that Shirley's family will have found the grieving process extremely difficult, knowing that her killer had not been caught.
"I hope that today's conviction has given them some of the closure that they require to move on with their lives."
O'Callaghan was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation to serve a minimum of 28 years.