David McGreavy, often refered to as the Friday the 13th killer, is responsible for one of the grisliest crimes in British history. However it’s a crime that puts him in league with other such monsters incuding the Moors murderers, The Roses or the Soham Murders, yet David McGreavy is often forgotten and his horrific wrongdoings are not held in the same regard.
Born into a military family in the 1950’s, McGreavy traveled extensively during his childhood living through England and Germany. After leaving school, he attempted to follow in his fathers footsteps and signed up to the royal navy and started a serious relationship that led to an engagement. This didn’t last long as he found himself court martialled for starting a fire that caused significant damage. He was forced to move back in with his parents and things began to spiral for David McGreavy. He began to drink heavily which meant that he found it increasingly difficult to stay in work as he bounced from job to job. His fiancée left him and eventually his parents could not cope with his chaotic drinking and kicked him out of the house.
David McGreavy was taken in by an old friend of his, Clive Ralph and his wife Elsie Ralph in 1972. They were a married couple with two small children, Paul and Dawn Maria, as well as a third on the way. McGreavy found work in a local factory and paid the Ralph’s £6 a week in rent as well as helping cook meals and occasionally babysit the children.
When the third child Samantha was born, Clive Ralph was working as a lorry driver for his fathers firm and Elsie Ralph found work as a barmaid just down the road from their home. This was not an issue for the Ralph’s as their lodger, David McGreavy, was ‘like a father’ to her children, to use Elsie’s own words. McGreavy began looking after the children more and appeared to everyone as someone that loved children. Things were going well for the Ralph family. This all changed on Friday April 13th 1973.
While babysitting the children, David McGreavy who had been drinking heavily became enraged at one-year-old Samantha, who had been crying for her bottle. McGreavy grabbed Samantha by the throat and squeezed until she could not cry anymore. He also hit her with a bult object and fractured her skull. He then proceeded to slit two-year-old Dawn’s throat and strangle four-year-old Paul to death using a piece of wire. After murdering the three children, David McGreavy went down to the basement to retrieve a pitchfork. He used the pitchfork to mutilate the bodies of the three children, leaving blood and viscera everywhere.
Debating whether or not to bury the children, he made the life scarring decision to take the mutilated bodies of the children outside and to impale them on the wrought iron fence in the garden for the neighbours to find. He then left the home and began to aimlessly walk the streets. By the time Clive and Elsie Ralph came home, the bodies has already been found and the police had cordoned off the Ralph home refusing to allow the parents to see the remains of their children. David McGreavy was arrested later that night and owned up to the killings. He offered no motive other than being irritated by the sound of the baby crying.
Two months after the murders David McGreavy sat in court and was sentenced to multiple life sentences with a minimum of 20 years to be served. The deliberation came after only eight minutes as he had no defence, no motive and no case of diminished responsibility.
David McGreavy has been in prison since 1973, a total of 45 years. In that time he’s been the subject of countless media pieces trying to piece together why he brutally killed three children that he supposedly cared for, but nobody has ever been able to answer that, and David McGreavy does not seem to want to. As of December 2018, he has been back in the news after it came to light that David McGreavy has been cleared for release by a parole board who have deemed him a considerably changed man. The 67-year-old will be freed sometime in 2019. Elsie Ralph, who is now also in her late 60’s, has stated that she feels betrayed after a judge promised her that McGreavy would be behind bars for the rest of his life. David McGreavy took everything from the Ralph’s. Their children, their home, their marriage and their future. Yet he will walk the streets and experience freedom for the remainder of his life. Whether that is right and just is an argument for another time.
Let me know what you think! Should David McGreavy be allowed to leave prison?
Tidus Mino's Lists 