Editing Shankill Butchers (section)

===Cut-throat killings===
On 24–25 November 1975, using the city's sectarian geography to identify likely targets, Murphy roamed the areas nearest the Catholic New Lodge in the hope of finding someone likely to be Catholic to abduct. Francis Crossin<ref>Deaths, ''The Irish News'', 27 November 1975, p. 8</ref><!-- spelling of this man's name is correct -- *not Crossan or Crossen --> (34), a Catholic man and father of two, was walking down Library Street towards the city centre at approximately 12:40 {{small|am}} when four of the Butchers, in Moore's taxi, spotted him. As the taxi pulled alongside Crossin, Murphy jumped out and hit him on the right side of the head with a [[wheel brace]] to disorient him. He was dragged into the taxi by Benjamin Edwards and Archie Waller, two of Murphy's gang. As the taxi returned to the safety of the nearby Shankill area, Crossin suffered a ferocious beating. He was subjected to a high level of violence, including a beer glass being shoved into his head. Murphy repeatedly told Crossin: "I'm going to kill you, you bastard", before the taxi stopped at an entry off Wimbledon Street. Crossin was dragged into an alleyway and Murphy, brandishing a butcher's knife, cut his throat almost through to the spine. The gang dispersed. Crossin, whose body was found the next morning by an elderly woman, was the first of three Catholics to be killed by Murphy in this "horrific and brutal manner".<ref name="Crossin">Dillon, pp 66–69</ref> "Slaughter in back alley" was the headline in the city's major afternoon newspaper that day.<ref name="Belfast Telegraph">''Belfast Telegraph'', 25 November 1975</ref> A relative of Crossin said that his family was unable to have an open coffin at his [[wake (ceremony)|wake]] because the body was so badly mutilated.<ref name="wake">{{cite web|url=http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/Irelandclick/arts2002/tortured_butchered9-2-02.html |title=Tortured and butchered |work=Nuzhound.com |access-date=28 October 2018}}</ref>

[[File:Lawnbrookclub.jpg|thumb|The Lawnbrook Social Club (1979)]]
A few days later, on 30 November 1975, an internal feud led to the deaths of two members of a rival UVF company on the Shankill and to that of Archibald Waller, who had been involved in the Crossin murder. On 14 October of that year, Waller had killed Stewart Robinson in a [[Kneecapping|punishment shooting]] gone wrong.<ref name="Robinson">[http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1975.html "Cain: Sutton Index of Deaths"]. Retrieved 4 September 2009</ref> With the sanction of the UVF Brigade Staff, he in turn was gunned down by one of Robinson's comrades in the UVF team based in the Windsor Bar, a quarter of a mile from the Brown Bear pub. Enraged, Murphy had the gunman, former loyalist prisoner Noel "Nogi" Shaw, brought before a [[kangaroo court]] in the Lawnbrook Club, one of his Shankill drinking dens. After [[pistol whipping]] Shaw, Murphy shot him in front of his whole unit of about twenty men and returned to finish his drink at the bar. John Murphy and William Moore put Shaw's body in a laundry basket, and Moore dumped it half a mile away.<ref name="Shaw">Jordan, ''Milestones in Murder'' (centre pages with image of Shaw's body in basket)</ref>

Murphy's other cut-throat victims were Thomas Quinn (55) and Francis Rice (24). Both were abducted late at night, on the weekend, in the same area as Crossin. Quinn was murdered in the Glencairn district of the Upper Shankill in the early hours of 7 February 1976 and Rice a few streets from Murphy's home at about 1:30 am on 22 February 1976, after a butcher's knife had been collected from a loyalist club. Quinn's body was not found until mid-evening, after a phone call to a Belfast newspaper, while Rice's was found about six hours after his murder. Murphy's main accomplices on both occasions were Moore and Bates, while Edwards was party to the killing of Quinn. Another man and two women, whom Dillon did not name, were accessories to Murphy in the murder of Rice.<ref name="Quinn and Rice">Dillon, pp 115–31</ref>

By this time the expression "the Butchers" had appeared in media coverage of these killings, and many Catholics lived in fear of the gang. Detective Chief Inspector [[Jimmy Nesbitt (RUC)|Jimmy Nesbitt]], head of the [[Criminal Investigation Department|CID]] Murder Squad in Tennent Street RUC base and the man charged with tracking down the Butchers, was in no doubt that the murders of Crossin, Quinn and Rice were the work of the same people. Other than that he had little information, although a lead was provided by the woman who found Rice's body. The previous night she had heard voices in the entry where the body was later found, and what she thought might have been a local taxi (those in Belfast being ex-London type black cabs). This had led to William Moore's taxi being examined for evidence, as were all other Shankill taxis; however, the Butchers had cleaned the vehicle thoroughly and nothing incriminating was found.<ref name="taxi">Dillon, pp 129–31</ref> Under Murphy's orders, Moore destroyed the taxi and bought a yellow Ford Cortina, which was to be used in subsequent murders.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}

Early on 11 March 1976, Murphy tried to kill a Catholic woman in a [[drive-by shooting]]; arrested later that day, he was put on remand on an attempted murder charge. Shortly after Murphy's arrest, he began to receive visits from "Mr. A" and "Mr. B". He told "Mr. A" that the cut-throat murders should continue in due course, partly to divert suspicion from himself. In a subsequent [[plea bargain]], Murphy pleaded guilty to a firearms charge and was sentenced on 11 October 1977 to twelve years' imprisonment. Another Catholic man killed by the gang was Cornelius "Con" Neeson (49), attacked with a hatchet by Moore and McAllister on the Cliftonville Road late on 1 August 1976. He died a few hours later. One of Neeson's brothers, speaking in 1994, declared: "I saw the state of my brother's body after he was butchered on the street. I said, 'That is not my brother'. Even our mother would not have recognised him".<ref name="Neeson">[http://www.politics.ie/history/18916-sectarianism-racism-one-same.html Sectarianism – Racism – One and the Same?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110609160824/http://www.politics.ie/history/18916-sectarianism-racism-one-same.html |date=9 June 2011 }}, politics.ie. Retrieved 21 December 2015.</ref>

Later that year "Mr. A" informed Moore, now the Butchers' ''de facto'' commander, of Murphy's orders to resume the throat-slashings. Three more Catholic men from North Belfast were subsequently kidnapped, tortured and hacked to death in the same way as before. The victims were Stephen McCann (20), a Queen's University student murdered on 30 October 1976; Joseph Morrissey (52), killed on 3 February 1977; and Francis Cassidy (43), a dock-worker who was killed on 30 March 1977. Moore proved himself an able deputy to Murphy, committing the throat-cuttings himself and encouraging the gang to use extreme violence on the victims beforehand. In particular, Arthur McClay attacked Morrissey with a hatchet; Moore had promoted McClay after Murphy had been jailed. The three victims were dumped in various parts of the greater Shankill area. The other gang members involved in one or more of these cut-throat murders were McAllister, John Townsley, David Bell and Norman Waugh.<ref name="gang members">Dillon, pp 172–220</ref> "Mr. A" played a prominent part in the planning of Moore's activities.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}

After his arrest in 1977, William Moore was portrayed in subsequent police accounts as having been in effective control of the Butchers gang during Murphy's incarceration. However, a 2017 book on the UVF, citing an unnamed source, argued that John, an older brother of Murphy who escaped prosecution, had been directing the activities of the Butchers during that time.<ref name="Johnmurphy">[https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/lenny-murphys-brother-was-real-boss-of-shankill-butchers-gang-says-new-book-35830982.html ''Belfast Telegraph''], Retrieved 11 May 2021.</ref>