MURDER at the garage
How a killer jumped from a building to escape justice…
When garage owner Tony Marrocco and his colleague Paul Sandham failed to come home on 23 January 1995, their families alerted the police.
However, nothing prepared officers for the scene that greeted them at TM Motors in Morecambe, Lancashire. Tony had been beaten to death with a wrench, while Paul’s body was found dumped a mile away. He’d been stabbed 40 times.
Cash was missing from the garage, as well as a gold chain belonging to Tony.
‘The killer had also selected the most expensive car and moved other cars out of the way to get to it,’ says DS Graham Gooch, who headed up the investigation. ‘We knew it wasn’t a panic killing.’
Cornering the suspect
When Kent Police named Terry Clifton in connection with another violent robbery, detectives believed they had their man.
Sensing the game was up, Clifton went on the run. He was eventually tracked down to a seventh-floor flat in Erith, Kent, and jumped off the balcony to escape before he was arrested by armed officers.
Clifton was found guilty of both murders in January 1997 and was sentenced to life.
‘He was an absolutely evil man,’ says DS Gooch. ‘He wasn’t stupid – he was calculated and just plain nasty.’