Following their conviction of killing a woman lodger 13 years ago when she threatened to expose that they were mistreating a young child, Charles O’Neill & William Lauchlan, two homosexual lovers were sentenced to life.
A majority judgement of strangling Allison McGarrigle as she slept and then putting her body in a wheelie bin or similar container in the Firth of Clyde off Largs after burying it on a nearby beach in 1997 resulted in convictions for Charles O’Neill, 47, and William Lauchlan, 33.
O’Neill was sentenced to at least 30 years and Lauchlan to at least 26 years amid chants of “beasts” from the public gallery at the Glasgow high court, where McGarrigle’s relatives and ex-spouse had assembled for the decision.
Following an earlier trial that was not disclosed until today, Charles O’Neill & William Lauchlan—who had often claimed to be relatives and had past convictions for raping, drugging and assaulting children—were also imprisoned for ten years each for the grooming and sexual abuse of two boys aged six and fourteen.
Judge Lord Pentland declared the murder to be “despicable”. “It is clear that you are both dangerous and determined predatory paedophiles and that you now represent a great risk to the safety of the public,” he informed the two men.
“You developed a cold-blooded and vile scheme to kill Mrs McGarrigle and get rid of her body when you found out she planned to denounce you to the police for sexually abusing [the kid]. You then executed this plan with icy calm. You put considerable effort into covering your traces.
“Your calculated and sneaky manipulation of vulnerable people to further your appetites for sexually abusing young men and boys was the consistent theme which permeated the evidence in both trials.”
Following a trial about four weeks long, Charles O’Neill & William Lauchlan were found guilty. McGarrigle, whose body has not been discovered, met Charles O’Neill & William Lauchlan in 1994 after coming to Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute, after she split from her husband, Robert.
The lad they raised and mistreated for three years had introduced her to the Charles O’Neill & William Lauchlan. Years later, the lad turned up lurking in their cupboard. The lad developed to “love” the two guys, but McGarrigle stated she would be reporting them for abuse and was afraid of them.
The prosecution claimed Charles O’Neill & William Lauchlan then killed her in her bed, buried the body under rocks on Largs Beach, and then discarded it at sea. Her divorcing spouse claimed she vanished in 1998. Declared dead in 2005, her body has never been located.
Charles O’Neill & William Lauchlan denied the allegations; their defence counsel contended that the lack of any forensic or eyewitness evidence, the inability to establish she had been murdered, and the failure to locate a body seriously called into the case. O’Neill presented a particular defence of incrimination, contending that another individual would have been murdered if one had been carried out.
The jury heard O’Neill point to the Firth of Clyde and tell one witness McGarrigle was “feeding the fishes”.
An inmate of Barlinnie prison with O’Neill in 1998, John Molseed, claimed she had been “done away with”. Launchlan told a plasterer, Keith Denney, whom the couple met in Spain in 2004, McGarrigle had been “gotten rid of” and reiterated that she had been “fed to the fishes”.
In the concurrent child abuse case, which concluded last month, O’Neill was convicted guilty of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy following drugging him in 2003. Both men were found guilty of purposefully meeting a six-year-old kid meant to engage in illegal sexual behaviour with him between December 2007 and March 2008; they were also found guilty of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy, locking him in a closet and peeing on him in a motor home in Spain in 2004.
Initially taken custody for McGarrigle’s murder in 2005, Charles O’Neill & William Lauchlan were charged in 2008 following an investigation combining four Scottish and English police forces.
Under the general charge of the investigation, Assistant Chief Constable Ruaraidh Nicolson of Strathclyde police said: “Charles O’Neill & William Lauchlan were devious, manipulative and highly dangerous. They were ready to kill to make sure the authorities never found out about their actions.
Upon their conviction, Allison’s son Robert McGarrigle declared she was “a cheerful, happy woman with a heart of gold. She was taken away from us trying to shield a small child from mistreatment; she adored children. She would not have left her three children behind or missed seeing her four grandchildren flourish if she still lived. We sorely mourn her and wish we could bury her.
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