Why were two ‘evil’ killers freed early to rape and murder this young mother of two?
TWO murderers who were freed from jail only to kill again, torturing a young mother before burning her alive, face spending the rest of their lives behind bars.
Officials last night stood accused of serious failings in overseeing Stephen Unwin, 40, and William John McFall, 51, after they were released from their earlier sentences after 14 years.
The men were yesterday found guilty of murdering Quyen Ngoc Nguyen, a 29-year-old Vietnamese mother of two who ran a nail bar. Unwin was also convicted of raping her. After the murder the pair posed for a grinning selfie in Unwin’s car.
Miss Nguyen, who was 5ft and weighed seven stone, was described by her family as ‘innocent and naive’.
Newcastle Crown Court was told Unwin and McFall became friends in prison before meeting again on the outside, where they worked together as handymen for private landlords.
Miss Nguyen’s sister Quynh, 35, said officials were ‘too kind’ in allowing the men’s release from their earlier life sentences for murdering vulnerable pensioners while burgling their homes in the 1990s. She urged the judge to ensure they die in jail.
She said: ‘ Nothing will bring back my sister’s life. But I believe that if they were released in the future then definitely some innocent people would be harmed. I think they should never be released – they are evil.’
Detective Inspector Ed Small, of Northumbria Police, said the killers were ‘the two most cowardly and violent men I have come across’ and neither had shown ‘any sign of remorse’.
In a grim irony, it was Unwin’s apparent ‘deep remorse’ which in part led to his release from his earlier sentence.
Relatives of Unwin’s first victim, retired pharmacist John Greenwell, 73, said the new case could even justify the return of the death penalty.
The terminally ill pensioner was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in his bed and his bungalow set on fire on Christmas Day 1998.
His niece Brenda Corcoran said: ‘You have to wonder, where was the monitoring of these two people, who had both killed before and were spending all their time together? How did that happen?
‘I’m not in favour of the death penalty. But with people like these two you have to wonder whether it
‘Warped fantasy and greed’
might be justified.’ Former Labour home secretary Lord Blunkett said it ‘beggars belief’ that two men released on life licences were allowed to become friends outside jail and commit such a terrible crime.
He said: ‘It demonstrates a need to keep behind bars those who endanger the public until it is beyond doubt they are safe to be released.’
Unwin spent only 14 years in jail for his first murder, including time on remand, before his release in 2012.
McFall also served 14 years until his release in 2010. He had murdered Martha Gilmore, 86, while burgling her home in County Antrim, in May 1996, attacking her with a hammer.
Murder in the course of a burglary currently carries a minimum term of 25 years. But until 2003, judges did not set tariffs for life sentences.
Quynh Nguyen said her sister had come to Britain from Vinh, a city in northern Vietnam, seeking a ‘better life’ in 2010. She studied business at the London School of Commerce before moving to Birmingham, then Newcastle, where she lived with her sister’s family and her son David, aged four. Miss Nguyen also had an older child who remained in Vietnam.
But in a horrendous ordeal last year, she was raped, beaten and sexually assaulted before being dumped in her own Audi A4 car, which was doused in petrol and set on fire.
A pathologist’s report indicated she may still have been alive inside the burning vehicle.
After yesterday’s verdicts, judge Mr Justice Morris told Unwin and McFall he would consider whether they should receive whole-life terms in prison when they are sentenced next month.
Miss Nguyen came into contact with Unwin and McFall because she helped to let properties to Vietnamese immigrants, as well as running the nail bar with her sister.
The killers, who had reunited in 2014, renovated properties for private landlords, the court heard.
On August 15 last year they lured Miss Nguyen to Unwin’s home in Houghton-le-Spring, County Durham. Jamie Hill, QC, prosecuting, said the motive ‘was a combination of violent, warped sexual fantasy and greed’.
The pair held Miss Nguyen, raped her and then forced her to hand over the PINs to her bank cards, which they stole and used to withdraw cash.
On the night of the killing, McFall messaged Unwin asking: ‘Are we raping the chink? xx.’ They also joked about ‘ having a Vietnamese’ and, after the murder, the pair posed for their selfie in Unwin’s car.
They were caught after footage from a neighbour’s CCTV cameras showed them leaving Unwin’s house with their victim’s body wrapped in a white sheet. Unwin carried Miss Nguyen over his shoulder while McFall pulled down the sheet to try to obscure her from the cameras.
Miss Nguyen’s sister said: ‘ What kind of people in humankind could do anything like that? It was brutal to do that to my sister. She was naive. She would be very friendly to Mr Unwin and she would not be able to imagine how any person could do something like that to such a nice girl.’
During Unwin and McFall’s trial, the court heard that at least one of houses
let by Miss Nguyen was used as a cannabis farm. Some houses were also let to people ‘without the necessary immigration documents’. But a Northumbria Police spokesman said: ‘There is no evidence that Quyen was aware of any criminal activity.’
Miss Nguyen and her young son lived in Killingworth, north of Newcastle, with Quynh, her husband Mung Trang and the couple’s three children.
Unwin and McFall blamed each other for the murder in a plan cooked up in jail.
McFall wrote a letter to Unwin headed: ‘Destroy once you have read bro.’ In it he wrote: ‘Spent last week going through a law book in the library. With a bit of luck I’ve found a legal loophole.’ The pair hoped that if they blamed each other then the jury would be unable to decide who did it and they would both have to be acquitted.
Last night David Hines, of campaign group the National Victims Association, said the Parole Board and probation service must be held accountable for the pair being freed to kill from their previous jail sentences.
He said: ‘Someone involved in freeing these two people, in failing to monitor them correctly, in allowing this young woman’s murder, should themselves be standing in front of a court to answer for their failings.’