his sentence for the firearms charge, Lenny Murphy walked out of the Maze Prison on Friday, 16 July 1982. During his term inside, his wife Margaret had initiated divorce proceedings which were being finalised at the time of his death. Murphy returned to his old ways, killing at least four more people over the next four months. He beat to death a partially disabled man one day after returning to the Shankill. Another victim sold him a car and was shot dead after demanding full payment. Murphy also attempted to extort money from local businessmen who had been sympathetic in the past; however, this encroached on other loyalist paramilitaries with established protection rackets. In late August 1982, Murphy killed a part-time Ulster Defence Regiment soldier from the lower Shankill area who was closely involved with the UVF in Ballymena and was allegedly an informer. The man's body was not discovered for almost a year."Murdered Man was not the Shankill Butcher, says mother", News Letter, 18 November 1982. In mid-October, Murphy and several associates kidnapped a Catholic man who was then tortured and beaten to death in Murphy's own house (temporarily vacated due to renovations). Murphy, who had left the house strewn with the victim's blood and teeth, was arrested for questioning the next morning but later released. The sadism of the widely publicised killing led to loyalism receiving a great deal of bad publicity, and leading UVF figures concluded that Murphy's horrific methods had made him too much of a liability. Death On 16 November 1982, Murphy had just pulled up outside the rear of his girlfriend's house on the Forthriver Road area of Glencairn, a part of the Greater Shankill Area, when two Provisional IRA gunmen emerged from a black van nearby and opened fire with a sub-machine gun and a 9mm pistol. Murphy was hit by more than twenty rounds and died instantly. He was gunned down just around the corner from where the bodies of many of the Butchers' victims had been dumped. A few days after his death the IRA claimed responsibility. According to RUC reports, the UVF had provided the IRA hit team with the details of Murphy's habits and movements, which allowed them to assassinate him at that particular location. Another line of inquiry ends at UDA leader James Craig, who saw Murphy as a serious threat to his widespread racketeering and provided the