Graham McGill Wiki
Graham McGill Biography
Who is Graham McGill?
Graham McGill was on day release from prison when he carried out the 1984 murder.
A serial s*x offender was convicted of murdering a mother of 11 more than 36 years ago.
It took a jury just over two hours to convict Graham McGill, 59, of strangling Mary McLaughlin, 58, in her Glasgow apartment of hers.
The grandmother’s body was discovered on October 2, 1984, six days after she was last seen alive on a night out in the far west of the city.
McGill will be sentenced in Aberdeen Superior Court next month.
Judge Lord Burns told him: “I have to pronounce a life sentence and I will do so in his due time.”
Murder accused ‘confessed murder’ to ex-wife
Jury urged to convict man charged with murder in 1984
He thanked the jurors who attended what he described as “a harrowing and difficult case.”
At the time of Ms. McLaughlin’s murder, McGill was day free from a 1981 prison sentence for assault with intent to rape.
During the four-day trial in Glasgow High Court, the jury heard that she had enjoyed an evening drinking and playing dominoes in different bars on September 26, 1984.
Mary McLaughlin
Image caption Mary McLaughlin was found dead in her Partick apartment of hers on October 2, 1984
She was last seen around 10:45 pm and went to a chip shop on the way home. But shortly after she met McGill, who was 22, and ended up back in her flat.
She there she launched what the prosecution described as a “brutal attack” and strangled Ms. McLaughlin with the cord of her own gown.
Ms. McLaughlin’s death sparked a major police investigation and dozens of lines of investigation.
The unsolved case remained unsolved until modern DNA techniques placed McGill on her floor. The evidence suggested that the chances that the DNA did not come from McGill were less than a billion to one.
DNA found on her dress, inside the gown’s belt knot, a cigarette butt and on a black bra matched McGill, forensic scientist Joanne Cochrane told the jury.
McGill’s ex-wife, Suzanne Russell, also told the court that in 1988 he had confessed to murdering a woman because she “just wanted to know how she was feeling.”
‘Pain and loss’
Prosecutor Alex Prentice QC revealed that McGill, who worked as a manufacturer, left the day of his departure from HMP Edinburgh as part of a Training for Freedom initiative.
He was serving a six-year sentence for assault with intent to rape and rape imposed in 1981.
He said: “It was during probation that he carried out the murder of Mary McLaughlin. She was 22 at the time.”
Members of Mary’s family had written letters to the court expressing her grief.
Prentice said: “The pain and sense of loss they have suffered has been prolonged.”
Son recalls finding his mother’s body in 1984
The prosecutor also told the court that McGill was jailed for life in 1999 for a brutal assault with intent to rape and was released on leave in 2007.
He was arrested and charged with the murder of Ms. McLaughlin on December 4, 2019.
Det Supt Suzanne Chow from the Scottish Police Homicide Governance Review Team said: “Despite crimes that occurred years ago, there is always hope that we will solve them one day, they are never forgotten.
“Mary’s family has waited a long time for justice and I hope that today’s verdict will provide some form of resolution. It is appropriate to know that despite the passage of time, justice has finally been served.”
