Milltown massacre cemented notoriety
LOYALIST killer Michael Stone became notorious after his bloody gun and bomb attack on Belfast’s Milltown Cemetery in March 1988, when he attacked the funerals of three IRA members, shooting and lobbing grenades into the crowd.
Three people died during the attack, Thomas McErlane (20), John Murray (26) and 30-year-old Kevin
Brady, with Stone admitting to three other murders after being arrested.
The Milltown Massacre was filmed by a multitude of TV cameras and made Stone infamous across the world.
In November 1984, Stone gunned down Catholic milkman Patrick Brady (36) in south Belfast and a year later he shot dead joiner Kevin McPolin (26) in Lisburn.
His third murder occurred in May 1987 when he killed Dermot Hackett (37) as the bread delivery man drove his work van along the road from Omagh to Drumquin. The Ulster Freedom Fighters
— a cover name for the UDA — claimed the murder.
The former UDA man was released in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, but was imprisoned again in 2006 after attempting to kill Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at Stormont.
Stone is currently serving the remainder of the minimum 20-year jail term he was given in 1988.
It was while in prison that the convicted killer of six people turned to art and has since sold a number of paintings for thousands of pounds. The father-of-nine married his third wife Karen in a ceremony in Maghaberry Prison two years ago. He is coming to the end of his 30-year sentence for murder and is allowed out of prison for 24 hours every four weeks.