David McGreavy: Worcester’s Monster
“The Real Friday the 13th Killer”, why did David McGreavy murder, three innocent children?
In Southport, Lancashire, 1951 David McGreavy was born as the second eldest child to Thomas and Bella McGreavy. His father worked as a sergeant in the army which meant that his family frequently moved to different countries. As a result, it became increasingly difficult for David and his siblings to build worthwhile bonds and friendships with other children so they only really had one another. Nevertheless, he had an uneventful, normal childhood. All his siblings would go on bike rides, have picnics, and even skiing depending on where they were at the time.
Personal Life
In 1967, David left school to join the Royal Navy, his dream job. He was extremely excited about this, but his father had his doubts, fearing he was not cut out for it. Despite his father’s concerns after joining the navy, like many other men, David changed very quickly. The environment opened him up to the world of competition, with the constant pressure to be the best. The young boys would constantly drink and often got into trouble for general mischief like being too drunk, pulling pranks and starting fights.
At 19, David got into trouble for something more serious than general mischief. Whilst on watch duty he was bored and drunk, so decided to break into an officer’s wardroom. He stalked around the room and found a book on the desk with his name on, in his intoxicated state he perceived this as his job in danger and thought he was about to be fired. In his drunk state of mind, he threw the book in the bin and set fire to it which later got extremely out of control.
Initially, he had no idea what to do when he was interviewed by those higher up and continued to change his story stating he did break in but the fire was not started intentionally, his lit cigarette dropped in the bin. He was court marshalled and found guilty of negligence and given a 90-day punishment in which he underwent psychiatric testing. Nobody knows the results of this, even his family.
In January 1971, David started a relationship with a lady called Mary. Between January and April, they exchanged two love letters a week that was extremely lengthy and intense. One weekend in April they met for the first time, the following weekend David proposed to her. His parents were both opposed to the engagement for obvious reason. For a start, they had no idea who she was, they had known each other less than 6 months and had only met twice. David’s arrogance and stubbornness persisted so he stayed with Mary. That same year in August his childhood dreams came to an end, he was discharged from the Navy and left, stumbling job to job. He was sacked from both jobs as a labourer and chef as a result of his attitude and affection for alcohol.
Life Takes a Turn
The couple planned to marry around Christmas time that year. Unemployed and living with his parents Mary was the only light in his life. Unfortunately, by January 1972 Mary had called off the wedding, with his parents’ disapproval weighing down on their relationship coupled with his unsupportive tendencies she had reached her final tether.
David had zero motivation to do anything, his alcoholism had gotten worse and he had no friends. His parents grew tired of his laziness and inability to offer support in the house so they kicked him out.
He went to go and live with an old school friend Clive Ralph and his pregnant wife Elsie. They had two children three-year-old Paul and 20-month-old Dawn. A few months after he moved in Clive and Elsie had their little daughter Samantha, which meant that the small two-bedroom house was now housing six people. Young Paul shared a bedroom with David, Elsie and Clive had the master bedroom and the two girls slept in cots in their parents’ room. The agreement was that David paid £6.00 a week towards rent and worked as an extra pair of hands around the house whilst Clive was away for work, so he occasionally cooked for the family too.
He was well known to the neighbours who said he was so good with the three children, almost like a second father. They were aware of his darker side when he drank but knew to keep away from him as there were two occasions where he was arrested for his drunken behaviour.
The family needed more money, so when Samantha was seven months old Elsie got a job as a barmaid at The Punch Bowl Tavern. This meant that David became a full-time babysitter for the family, whilst Elsie worked nightshifts at the bar, David would play with the children and put them to bed. The couple were extremely trusting of David and the children had a great relationship with him so this did not flag up as a concern.
On Friday 13th April 1973, Elsie was working a closing night shift. When she closed Clive would come to pick her up from work, beforehand they would usually have a few drinks whilst closing and then set off home to their three kids. However, when they returned home that night, they were greeted with police at their door who informed them there had been a murder. The couple was in shock, Elsie started hyperventilating and panicking. Luckily there was an ambulance at the scene, so a paramedic gave her an injection to calm her down which is a leading reason why her memory is so fuzzy surrounding this night.
Murder Strikes
Earlier that evening David had gone to Buck’s Hill pub with a friend, where he drank around 7 pints of beer. As stated previously he was susceptible to violence when intoxicated, he grew frustrated with his friend and put a cigarette out in his drink. Before going to pick up Elsie, Clive went to pick up David and take him home to look after the children.
Somewhere between 10:15 and 11:15 that night an already infuriated David lost his temper with the Ralph children. This started with 7-month old baby Samantha crying for her milk bottle which frustrated David he wanted her to shut up, so he put his hand over her mouth and smothered her causing her to die through suffocation.
This was not enough for David; he began beating her with such force that he fractured her skull, he then went into the bathroom to find a razor which he used to mutilate her. David then moved through the house upstairs to the other two sleeping children where he slit two-year-old Dawn’s throat with a bathroom razor and four-year-old Paul was strangled with a curtain wire.
Just like with Samantha this was not enough for David and he continued to attack the children even after they were dead. The following act completely horrified detectives and is the reason 49 years on he remains so memorable.
He went to the basement of the Ralph home, took a pickaxe and mutilated the children. Each of their bodies was taken one by one outside and impaled onto the iron pointed spikes of the next-door neighbours’ garden fence. David McGreavy then went off into the night, he was so drunk he still has no idea where he went.
The neighbours had heard screaming, crying and loud banging noises throughout this brutal attack so had called the police. The police patrol car that was dispatched had no idea what horrifying scenes they were about to witness, once they arrived several officers were left completely shaken with one even vomiting.
Immediately the police suspected it was the parents, they broke into the home but found nobody there. When Clive and Elsie first arrived on the scene, they were just calmly speaking with each other, they did not look like parents who had just brutally murdered their three children. So, tactically the police decided not to tell them details of the murder they just told them there had been a murder not how many children or what had happened. After questioning the couple, the police ruled them out as suspects and began thinking of who it could have been.
Police quickly found out the only other person with access to the house was David, so the police went out searching for him. Around 4 am that night they found him relatively close to the Ralph home. He was in complete denial, acting utterly clueless at why police had stopped him but the police were not buying into his act.
He was taken to the police station and questioned for hours into the next day, in which he continuously denied any involvement. Eventually, he said, ‘it was me, but it wasn’t me’. This could imply he is aware he physically did it but mentally he did not feel aware.
However, the very strange thing about this is he has never given a motive for this. He claimed Samantha’s crying is what kickstarted it all, but why did he carry on? Why would he go on to hurt the other two children and further mutilate them? As a baby Samantha constantly cried for her bottle, she would do this every night, he was used to caring for the children and was very good at it. The parents struggled to try to comprehend how someone so close to them could do this, especially without a motive.
On June 28th, 1973, David McGreavy pleaded guilty to all three murders. A reporter covering the story claimed there was an extremely eerie atmosphere in the court with David rarely looking up and evident hatred focused on this man. He had offered no plea, no motive and no claim of diminished responsibility, the trial only lasted eight minutes. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 20 years.
Life After Murder
As a child killer, in prison, David was victim to numerous attacks and assaults. For this reason, a large chunk of his prison sentence was spent away from the general population in solitude for protection.
The time he did spend in the general population it is rumoured he revelled in his infamy, with reports he had challenged Moor’s murderer Ian Brady to a fistfight to prove who was the most famous killer in Britain. In 2008, his crimes came to media attention again after an appeal for parole failed.
This news spread like wildfire, when prisoners heard of this his bed was urinated on and excrement was smeared on his cell walls. Following this, he was transferred to HMP Warren Hill in Suffolk where he severed the remainder of his sentence. He has since been released from prison on parole in December 2018 having ‘changed considerably’.
The effects of his crimes sent a shockwave far and wide. The horrors that David McGreavy inflicted on the Ralphs left a deep dent in their relationship, hence their divorce not long after the murders. Clive has not spoken out since the murders and nobody knows where he is, evidently, the horror of an old school friend murdering his young children was too much to fathom. Elsie has been interviewed 40 years after the murders stating the horrors of his crimes will haunt her every moment of her life.
