Trevor Joseph Hardy (11 June 1945 – 25 September 2012), also known as the Beast of Manchester,Chris Osuh
Serial killer will die in jail

Manchester Evening News The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 20 ...

, 13 June 2008. was a convicted English

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

who murdered three teenage girls in the

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

area between December 1974 and March 1976. In 1977, he was found guilty on three charges of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment, remaining in prison until his death 35 years later.

Murders

Janet Lesley Stewart, 15, was stabbed to death on New Year's Eve 1974 and buried in a shallow grave in

Newton Heath Newton Heath is an area of Manchester, England, north-east of Manchester city centre and with a population of 9,883. Historically part of Lancashire, Newton was formerly a farming area, but adopted the factory system following the Industrial R ...

North Manchester North Manchester was, from 1896 to 1916, a township within the Poor Law Union of Manchester, England. North Manchester was a local government sub-district used for the administration of Poor Law legislation; it was an inter-parish unit for soci ...

. Wanda Skala, 17, was murdered on 19 July 1975 on Lightbowne Road, Moston while walking home from the hotel where she worked as a

barmaid A bartender (also known as a barkeep, barman, barmaid, or a mixologist) is a person who formulates and serves alcoholic or soft drink beverages behind the bar, usually in a licensed establishment as well as in restaurants and nightclubs, but ...

. She had been hit over the head with a brick, robbed and sexually assaulted. Her body was found partially buried on a building site. In March 1976 after walking home from a staff party, Sharon Mosoph, 17, was stabbed and strangled with a pair of tights prior to being dumped in the Rochdale Canal in

Failsworth Failsworth is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England, north-east of Manchester city centre and south-west of Oldham. The orbital M60 motorway skirts it to the east. The population at the 2011 census was ...

. The bodies of Skala and Mosoph were found stripped and mutilated. At the height of the hunt for the serial killer, 23,000 people were stopped and searched.

Arrest, trial and conviction

Although Hardy was arrested for Skala's murder after bragging about it to his younger brother, he was freed on the basis of an

alibi An alibi (from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person, who is a possible perpetrator of a crime, of where they were at the time a particular offence was committed, which is somewhere other than where the crim ...

he had arranged with his partner, Sheilagh Farrow, and because he had filed his teeth with a contraband file delivered by Farrow so they would not match the bite marks found on her body. He would go on to kill Mosoph six months after being freed. Hardy was arrested for the murders of Skala and Mosoph in August 1976. He confessed to the murders and to that of Stewart, who until then had been a missing person. Prior to Stewart's murder, Hardy had been released on

parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...

for battering a man with a

pickaxe A pickaxe, pick-axe, or pick is a generally T-shaped hand tool used for prying. Its head is typically metal, attached perpendicularly to a longer handle, traditionally made of wood, occasionally metal, and increasingly fiberglass. A stand ...

. He reportedly mistook Stewart for a schoolgirl with whom he was infatuated. Hardy removed Stewart's ring and gave it to another girl as a "love token". Hardy had also kept Skala's blood-stained clothes and her handbag as "grisly trophies". The investigation revealed that Hardy killed Mosoph after she witnessed him attempting to burgle a shopping centre at night. At his trial, Hardy sacked his

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister o ...

and attempted to confess to manslaughter; however, the plea was rejected and he was found guilty of murder. On 2 May 1978, at the

Manchester Crown Court Manchester Crown Court (Crown Square) is a Crown Court venue which deals with criminal cases at Crown Square in Manchester, England. History Until the 1940s, criminal court cases were heard at the Manchester Assize Courts. However, the assize ...

, Hardy was sentenced to three

life sentence Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...

s for the murders with a minimum of 30 years. Hardy served his sentence more than 30 years after his arrest at

Wakefield Prison His Majesty's Prison Wakefield is a Category A men's prison in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. The prison has been nicknamed the "Monster Mansion" due to the large number of high-profile, high-risk ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, where he was reported to have a "good work record". He maintained his innocence and reportedly sent a letter to Mosoph's relatives blaming his parents. On 23 February 2008, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' revealed that Hardy was one of up to 50 British prisoners currently in prison who had been issued with a

whole life tariff In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for early release after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases, however, a j ...

and were unlikely to ever be released. The whole life tariff was reaffirmed in June 2008 by the High Court. Manchester locals had long suspected Hardy in the 1971 murder of 17-year-old Dorothy Leyden, and in 2004 family members requested that the

Greater Manchester Police Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England. , Greater Manchester Police employed 6,866 police officers, 3,524 memb ...

re-examine old evidence. Detectives reviewing the

cold case A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or r ...

believe

forensic evidence Forensic identification is the application of forensic science, or "forensics", and technology to identify specific objects from the trace evidence they leave, often at a crime scene or the scene of an accident. Forensic means "for the courts". H ...

exonerates Hardy in the murder of Leyden, as DNA samples examined more than 30 years after the crime were found not to match Hardy.

Death

Hardy collapsed in his cell at Wakefield Prison on 23 September 2012 after suffering a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

. He died in the hospital two days later, aged 67. He had spent 35 years in prison and was one of the longest-serving prisoners in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

.Victim's family celebrate as 'Beast of Manchester' Trevor Hardy dies, Manchester Evening News, September 28 2012
Retrieved 30 September 2012.

Murders

Arrest, trial and conviction

Death

Notes

See also