Shankill Butcher Murderer Found Dead

A sectarian killer whose brutal methods of murdering his victims shocked Northern Ireland has died.

Sixty-year-old William Moore - who was jailed for life in 1979 for his part in the infamous Shankill Butchers gang's sadistic killings - was found dead in his north Belfast home yesterday.

The police are investigating the 'sudden death' of one of the leaders of the notorious gang, which carried out a series of savage sectarian murders of Catholics in the 1970s.

The body was found at his flat in the loyalist Mount Vernon estate at 7.45am yesterday.

The circumstances surrounding his death are being investigated, but his death is not thought to be suspicious.

In 1979 Moore was given 14 life sentences for his involvement in 19 murders, 11 of which he admitted.

He was released from the Maze Prison in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, despite a judge's recommendation that he should never be freed.

Moore, a butcher by trade, supplied an assortment of knives and cleavers used by the gang to carry out random abductions of Catholics who were then tortured, mutilated and killed.

He is alleged to have personally slit the throat of one victim, and kicked another to death.

The dead man was to be questioned by the Historical Enquiries Team about the murder of a west Belfast man in 1974, one year before the Shankill Butchers began their bloody killing spree.

Moore also drove a black taxi used by the gang to cruise the streets of Belfast seeking Catholics to kill.

The gang also killed several rival loyalists as a result of petty feuds.

(BMcC/JM)