Murphy's Law: The Story of the Shankill Butchers

One of Their Own

Pavis, it seems, had been targeted for execution by Loyalist paramilitaries because he had made the mistake of selling a shotgun to a Roman Catholic priest. In the paranoid world of the paramilitaries, a man who would sell a gun to a Catholic cleric, well, God only knew what else he might do. The job fell to Murphy. On September 28, 1972, with an accomplice, Mervyn John Connor, Murphy rode to Pavis' house on a motorcycle. In front of witnesses, Murphy gunned the man down and then fled on the back of Connor's motorcycle.

For months, the crime went unsolved. But when Murphy and Connor were linked to a similar attack in which a motorcycle was used to kill a Catholic, authorities got the break they needed. The police were ready. Witnesses to the Pavis shooting were summoned and police conducted a lineup. Murphy was by now enough of a seasoned hood to realize that he could foil the identification by creating a scene, thus planting doubt in the minds of a jury whether the witnesses had recognized him from the shooting or whether they focused on him because of his tantrum. Connor was less sophisticated.

Crumlin Road Prison

Both were held in the Crumlin Road Prison. It was far from an open and shut case, and police knew it. They also knew that there was no way they would be able to force Murphy to confess. So they turned their attention to Connor, and tried to make a deal with him to point the finger at Murphy.

Long before he could testify, however, Connor was found dead in his cell. He had taken, or been force-fed, cyanide. Before he died, he had hastily scrawled a note, perhaps under threat of death, exonerating Murphy of any part in the Pavis killing.

Though a jury was unable to convict Murphy on the murder charges, the authorities in Ulster invoked the Northern Ireland Special Powers Act in many respects the Ulster predecessor of the US. Patriot Act and held him in detention, first at Crumlin Road Prison and then at the infamous terrorist prison at Long Kesh, later called Maze.

On May 13, 1975, he was released.