Guilty, crossbow killer who lay in wait for ex-lecturer, 74
A MARTIAL arts expert who executed a retired lecturer with a crossbow was yesterday convicted of his murder.
Terence Whall lured Gerald Corrigan to his death in the middle of the night by tampering with his Sky TV box.
The killer was caught out after data from the ‘ black box’ in his new Land Rover placed him close to 74-year-old Mr Corrigan’s home at the time of the shooting.
Sports therapist Whall, 39, was an acquaintance of Richard Wyn Lewis, who had allegedly conned Mr Corrigan out of £200,000 in the months before his death.
Mr Corrigan handed over the cash to his ‘friend’ Mr Wyn Lewis, 48, for supposed property schemes on Anglesey, North Wales. Mr Corrigan’s partner, Marie Bailey, 64, gave Mr Wyn Lewis another £57,000 in return for renovation work on their cottage and for a horse.
But it was only after Mr Corrigan’s death that she realised they had been duped by Mr Wyn Lewis, who had effectively ‘stolen’ the money from them, she told Mold Crown Court in North Wales.
During the five-week trial, the jury was told that the missing money was the key to the case, but exactly why Whall killed Mr Corrigan and who asked him to carry out the murder remains a mystery. Detective Chief Inspector Brian Kearney said: ‘Gerald Corrigan was the victim of a barbaric, medieval- style execution. He was entirely innocent. Whilst the exact motive is unknown, someone wanted Gerald Corrigan killed. This brutal murder was clearly underpinned by local criminality.’ Mr Wyn Lewis is being investigated – along with two other unnamed individuals – over the missing cash. Last night ‘heartbroken’ Miss Bailey begged Whall to explain why he had murdered her ‘best friend’. The couple had been together for 28 years. ‘To that sad, twisted broken soul... I say if you have an ounce of humanity, any sense of decency then you would tell us now why you have done this,’ she said. Mr Corrigan suffered terrible injuries after being shot on Good Friday last year. Whall lured the former photography lecturer outside his Anglesey property by tampering with his Sky box. When Mr Corrigan came outside to tinker with the dish, Whall, who was hiding behind a garden wall around 30ft away, fired a 20-inch bolt from the silent weapon. Mr Corrigan died around three weeks later. Police had no murder weapon or forensic evidence, but eventually identified twice-married Whall as the killer after receiving information from the black box of his seven-month-old Land Rover Discovery. He had hoped that by setting fire to the car the box would be destroyed, but information from it had already been relayed and stored by the car firm. Father-of-two Whall, who denied murder, said he was in the area to meet his gay lover. He will be sentenced on Friday with three other men who were involved in the burning of the Land Rover.