http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7147578.ece

Two homosexual paedophile lovers were convicted today of murdering a
woman 13 years ago who they feared would report them to the police for
sexually abusing a young boy.

Charles ONeill, 47, and William Lauchlan, 33, strangled Allison
McGarrigle, 39, in the flat that they shared before dumping her body at
sea. Her remains have never been found.

Both men were sentenced to life €” ONeill for a minimum of 30 years and
Lauchlan for 26 years. But the judge Lord Pentland warned the men that
they may never be freed.

When the jury at the High Court in Glasgow passed its majority verdict
today its members were unaware of the pairs appalling history of sex
abuse of young boys in Scotland, England and Spain, dating back to the
early 90s.

It can now be reported that ONeill and Lauchlan were found guilty last
month of abusing a teenager in Spain and grooming a boy in Scotland for sex.

It was a desperate desire to prevent police being told of a previous
child sex offence which led them to murder Mrs McGarrigle on June 21,
1997. She knew about them abusing a young boy from March 1993, when he
was 9. After killing her the men took her body to Largs Beach and put it
in a bin which they took out on a boat and threw into the sea.

Despite never recovering her body, detectives continued to investigate
and unearthed other crimes committed by ONeill and Lauchlan.

Mrs McGarrigle was last seen on June 12, 2007, in Largs, Ayrshire,
having recently moved there from Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute, to lodge
with ONeill and Lauchlan.

The mother-of-three was a small woman €” 4ft 10in €” and her murder trial
heard that she would not have had the ability to disappear and create a
new identity for herself. Lauchlan had claimed during the trial that he
liked to think she was still alive.

Mrs McGarrigle, a former machinist, split from her husband, Robert,
three years before her death. He described her as a €œhappy-go-lucky
person€� but the couples relationship had been tempestuous, with
frequent, violent arguments, and ONeill lodged a special defence that
Mr McGarrgile, 52, had killed his wife.

Mrs McGarrgile had learned that ONeill and his lover had been abusing
the boy, 13, and, fearing that she was going to report them to the
police, they agreed to murder her.

Both men dropped heavy hints over the years that they were involved in
the murder €” often to young boys, including the teenager they abused.
Now 26, he told the court that he got to know them when they lived in
Rothesay and grew to love them. He told how Mrs McGarrigle stayed in
their Largs home and was not allowed out on her own.

He said that ONeill once said €œwe will need to get rid of her€� and the
men talked about €œcutting her up€�. About a week after she moved in she
disappeared, he told the jury.

ONeill told another boy, aged about 14, that €œshe is feeding the fishes
down there€�. Now 27, he told the trial that the comment was made at the
mens cottage in Skelmorlie, Ayrshire, and €œmy understanding was that
Allison McGarrigle had been murdered and her body had been disposed of
in the water€�.

Another man, 29, who knew Lauchlan in the 1990s, claimed he had joked
that Mrs McGarrigle had fallen from the Rothesay ferry.

The court was told of an €œodd€� conversation when a relative of one of
the men, John Hutton, a merchant seaman, and his girlfriend Linda
Buckley visited them in 1997.

Ms Buckley, 51. told the court that ONeill had asked: €œIf you drop a
body at sea, how long would it take for it to come to the shore.€�

ONeill and Lauchlans abuse came to light when one of their victims
told his aunt and the pair were jailed in 1998.

Even in prison, the men continued to boast of their murder. John
Molseed, a convicted drink driver, was told by ONeill that Lauchlan had
been with a little boy and Mrs McGarrigle was €œdone away with€� before
she could go to the police.

Speaking outside the court, Robert McGarrigle, the dead womans son,
said that he was €œover the moon€� at the sentences and described his
mothers killers as €œbeasts€�.