| The Dream Solution
- Articles |
07/06/93
- Who killed Alison O'Shaughnessy?
Today
AS MURDER cases go, it had it all. Beautiful bride Alison O'Shaughnessy
brutally stabbed to death in a frenzied attack. The handsome husband,
John O'Shaughnessy, who cheated so cruelly on his new wife. And
the jealous mistress, before his wedding and scrawled "Alison,
the unwashed bitch ... my dream solution would be for Alison to
disappear" in her diary.
For the police it seemed a clear-cut crime of passion. For the
jury at last year's trial of Michelle and her sister Lisa, the
case was just as straightforward. The sisters were found guilty
of murdering Alison in Battersea, South London, in 1991 and jailed
for life. And on the steps of the Old Bailey, Detective Sergeant
Chris Burke decreed: "Justice has been done," But had
it?
Michelle and Lisa have always claimed they are innocent and in
November last year TODAY exclusively revealed they had been granted
leave to appeal. On Thursday the sisters' lawyers will present
dramatic new evidence when the appeal begins. The evidence centres
on a vagrant who, two days after Alison was killed confessed to
murdering a woman and stealing her jewellery.
But the lawyers will ask several other questions. Was it possible
for the girls to have committed the murder, given the time scale?
Did a witness lie? And was the trial prejudiced by unfair press
coverage? The vagrant told social worker Graham Guillou he had
"done a girl with a knife" and stolen her bracelets.
During the trial it was revealed that Alison's two gold bracelets
were stolen on the day of her murder and have never been found.
Over the next two months Guillou called police several times,
telling them about the tramp's confession. But no action was taken.
Turning sleuth, Guillou discovered the tramp slept rough on the
Strand, near where Alison worked as a Barclays bank clerk - and
that he drank in a Clapham pub she often visited. Again he called
police. Again nothing happened. Guillou then discovered the tramp
carried a knife, no longer had a leather jacket he always wore,
had sold his new trainers, had become moody and was talking of
leaving.
The night the tramp planned to flee, Guillou called the police
again, then waited outside the squat where he was packing. But
no officers came and the tramp has now vanished. At the time of
Alison's murder there had been a spate of stabbings in Battersea.
The victims were all women and their descriptions of the attacker
always matched that of the tramp. But by then police had arrested
Michelle and Lisa. Michelle, then a clerk at the clinic where
John O'Shaughnessy worked, had had an affair with him and still
slept with him occasionally after his marriage.
Police say the sisters lay in wait for Alison when she came home
at 5.40pm. Michelle was definitely outside the clinic at 6.03pm
that evening, so that left the sisters 23 minutes to butcher Alison,
remove all trace of their presence, destroy their blood-stained
clothes and drive four miles to the clinic through heavy traffic.
Police, say they did the drive in 11 minutes - no one else has
been able to do it in less than 14. Neighbour Mrs Christina Wright
says Alison came home at 6pm, not 5.40pm. In three statements,
Jeanette "J J" Tapp, a friend of the sisters, insisted
they had been in her room until 6pm.
But detectives were convinced J J was lying. At 5.40 one morning
they arrived at J J's door and told her they were arresting her
for conspiracy to murder Alison. Three hours later J J changed
her story. Now, she said, she hadn't seen the Taylors until 7pm.
The only witness who placed Michelle and Lisa at Alison's flat
that evening was Dr Michael UnsworthWhite, who said he saw two
girls running from the front door with a man following. But he
couldn't identify the sisters in a line-up. When the doctor was
first questioned he remembered nothing of consequence. Two months
later he recalled seeing two girls.
The sisters have always believed they were crucified by Fleet
Street. Newspapers, they say, were intent on portraying Michelle
as the scorned mistress who butchered her rival.
The sisters' mother Anne believes things will be different this
time. "The convictions will be quashed," she says. "One
way or another, this case won't go away." |
| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
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