FRED McCLENAGHAN PASSES AWAY AFTER FALLING ILL IN PRISON
SHOTGUN KILLER DEAD
SELF-CONFESSED murderer Fred McClenaghan — who was serving a life sentence for gunning down his former girlfriend in a Portstewart laundrette — has died in hospital.
Cold-blooded killer McClenaghan was being treated in the intensive care unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, but lost his fight for life yesterday.
It comes less than a year after McClenaghan, from Magherafelt, was handed a 13-year minimum sentence for the murder of his former girlfriend Marion Millican.
The Prison Service last night confirmed the death in custody of a 57-year-old prisoner who was being held at Magilligan Prison.
It said McClenaghan’s next of kin had been informed and, in line with standard procedure, the PSNI, Coroner and Prisoner Ombudsman have been informed.
Ronnie Armour, Director General of the Prison Service, said: “On behalf of the Northern Ireland Prison Service I would like to extend my sympathy to the family of the prisoner.”
It is understood McClenaghan died from natural causes after falling ill at Magilligan Prison where he was serving the remainder of his sentence.
It emerged last year that the cost of bringing McClenaghan to justice was in excess of £800,000 after he consistently denied his guilt.
He only admitted his crime during a third trial.
He was previously twice convicted of murder, but both convictions were quashed on appeal and McClenaghan faced his third trial last year when he finally admitted murdering Mrs Millican.
The mother-of-four was blasted in the chest at point-blank
range by McClenaghan when he went to the Portstewart laundrette where she worked on March 11, 2011.
He consistently claimed he had intended to kill himself in
front of Mrs Millican.
However, the court was told that their relationship had earlier broken down when he became violent towards her.
Mrs Millican had begun a relationship with McClenaghan after splitting from her husband in September 2009.
She ended the new relationship in December 2010, and was in the process of a reconciliation with her husband, Ken, just months before she was shot dead.
Speaking last year after McClenaghan finally admitted his guilt, Mrs Millican’s best friend, Pamela Henry, refuted McClenaghan’s claims that her death was accidental.
The friends were having lunch when McClenaghan walked into the shop with a shotgun and asked Mrs Millican to come with him before firing a shot at the floor.
“I just thought that both of us were going to get it — I was glad to get out alive,” Ms Henry said at the time.
“Marion was so lovely — very kind, and a loving wife, mother, aunt and granny. She had a good personality, she spoke to everybody, and Fred McClenaghan destroyed that.”