Mother’s body never found... but OAP guilty of her rape and murder
A PENSIONER has been found guilty of the murder and rape of a vulnerable woman whose body has never been found.
George Metcalff killed Patricia Henry, 46, known as Patti, at her flat.
Prosecutors said the 71-year-old, known as Kenny, attacked Miss Henry by ‘means unknown’ in Girvan, Ayrshire.
In a victim impact statement, Miss Henry’s
daughter Alannah McGrory, 21, pleaded for him to disclose where her body is. Prosecutor Alex Prentice, QC, read part of her statement in court yesterday.
It read: ‘Give me and my family the closure we need. Tell us where she is. I need somewhere to visit my mum and my gran needs somewhere to visit her daughter.’
Metcalff made trips to Miss Henry’s property after her murder on November 13, 2017, including in a hired van late at night.
He also ceased phone contact with her after the murder date, despite the pair having made 143 calls that month.
Metcalff faces a life sentence after being convicted of murdering, raping and physically and indecently assaulting Miss Henry, following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow. He was also found guilty of raping and assaulting two other women between 1971 and 2004. He was remanded in custody pending reports.
Putting him on the sex offenders’ register, Judge Lord Armstrong said: ‘You have been convicted of a series of grave crimes.’
Jurors heard Miss Henry first met Metcalff, a former assistant manager tyre specialist, in 2008 when she moved into the flat above his in Paisley, Renfrewshire. He became the guarantor for her new flat in Girvan in October 2017 and paid her deposit and first month’s rent totalling £700.
Mr Prentice said in his closing speech Metcalff had ‘control’ over Miss Henry. The trial heard he checked her bank balance and withdrew £250 on the day of her murder. Metcalff put most of Miss Henry’s belongings in a skip.
The trial was told the killer was violent with a woman, now 67, at Gleniffer Braes, Paisley, in 1971 when she was 16.
Another woman, who died in 2017, had told others Metcalff had raped her and been violent between 1989 and 2004.