Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
A brutal crime that shocked an entire nation was the murder of 66-year-old widow and grandmother Shirley Leach. This small, petite woman with brown curls had visited her sick daughter Beryl at Fairfield General Hospital in Bury on January 6, 1994. She left the hospital with her 19-year-old grandson Darren. After a quick stop at a pub, they both took the 469 bus to Bury city center. Darren got off at the Bell Lane stop. He waved goodbye to his grandmother. When Shirley arrived at Bury Interchange bus station to take the bus home, she went to a public toilet, where she met her killer. Shirley, a mother of two who lived with her son Gary on Holme Avenue in Brandlesholme, had her clothes torn off by her killer. He then sexually assaulted her before strangling her. He left Shirley’s body in the dirty toilet cubicle before returning 30 minutes later to cut off her right breast with a broken glass bottle, which he kept as a trophy. Shirley’s naked and mutilated body was discovered on January 7, 1994, by a girl on her way home from a club in Bolton. The gruesome murder terrified the residents of Bury, who declared the bus station a “no-go area” at the time. Women were advised to stay only in well-lit areas. The investigation into Shirley’s murder was in full swing. Witnesses had seen a suspicious man in a crouched position not far from the toilet. He was 1.70 meters tall, between 30 and 50 years old, and wore dark clothing. The police took over 500 blood samples from men, as the perpetrator had injured himself when he cut off Shirley’s right breast. He left a trail of blood on the door handle of the cubicle door. Despite intensive investigations and a £10,000 reward offered by a newspaper for the capture of Shirley’s killer, he remained at large for 12 years. But then a man was stopped for drunk driving in the Moston district in the north of Manchester. A DNA sample was routinely taken from him. It was found that this DNA matched the DNA of the murdered Shirley Leach found at the crime scene. The man was then arrested. He was Ian O’Callaghan, a former Territorial Army soldier who had already been convicted of indecent assault and indecent exposure. Ian was 25 years old when he abused, murdered, and mutilated Shirley Leach. At the time of the crime, he was working as a bus driver. After the murder, he got married and became a father. But just 10 months later, he was convicted of assaulting two women. At the age of 16, he had already indecently assaulted a woman in her bedroom, which he had broken into. In October 1992, he had stalked a woman and then brutally punched her in the face, for which he was convicted of assault in Lancaster. In 1994, he had exposed himself and masturbated in front of a 13-year-old girl. Ian’s trial took place at the end of 2006 at Manchester Crown Court, where the jury found him guilty of the murder of Shirley Leach and he was sentenced to 28 years in prison. But that wasn’t all Ian had to answer for. After 15 years, a woman came forward who had been raped by Ian when she was 11 years old. She only found the courage to report Ian after becoming a mother in 2016. In 2001, Ian, who was working as a bus driver, spotted a girl at the window. He later ran up to her, exposed himself, and masturbated in front of her. The shocked girl told her mother, who contacted Ian’s wife. Two weeks later, Ian dragged the girl into a side street and raped her in revenge. Fearing for her life, the woman remained silent for 15 years. For this cruel crime, Ian received an additional 15 years in prison, which, according to the judge, “may never be released from custody.” Thus, there is hope that this monster will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
