Hugh Leonard Thompson Murphy (2 March 1952 – 16 November 1982) was a Northern Irish loyalist and UVF officer. As leader of the Shankill Butchers gang, Murphy was responsible for many murders, mainly of Catholic civilians, often first kidnapping and torturing his victims. Due to a lack of evidence, Murphy was never brought to trial for these killings, for which some of his followers had already received long sentences in 1979. In the summer of 1982, Murphy was released just over half-way through a 12-year sentence for other offences. He returned to the Shankill Road, where he embarked on a murder spree. Details of his movements were apparently passed by rival loyalist paramilitaries to the Provisional IRA, who shot Murphy dead that autumn. Early life Murphy was the youngest of three sons of William and Joyce Murphy from the loyalist Shankill Road, Belfast. His elder brothers were William Jr. and John. William Sr. was originally from Fleet Street, Sailortown in the Belfast docks area. This was where he had met Joyce Thompson, who came from the Shankill. Like his own father (also named William), William Sr. worked as a dock labourer. The Murphy family changed their residence several times; in 1957 they returned to Joyce's family home in the lower Shankill, at 28 Percy Street. Murphy did not use "Hugh" possibly because when coupled with the surname Murphy it might have added to the Catholic connotation. Prior to the erection of a peace wall in the 1970s, Percy Street ran from the lower Shankill area to the Falls Road. At Argyle Primary School, he was known for the use of a knife and had his elder brothers to back him up; he logged his first conviction at the age of twelve for theft. After leaving the Belfast Boys' Model School at sixteen, he joined the Ulster Volunteer Force and was involved in the rioting that broke out in Belfast in August 1969. In his book The Shankill Butchers, Belfast journalist Martin Dillon suggests Murphy's bigoted Loyalism may have stemmed from his bearing a surname associated with Catholics.<ref name="early life">Dillon, Shankill Butchers, pp 4–9</ref> His character was marked by a hatred of Catholics which he brought into all of his conversations, often referring to them as "scum and animals". He held a steady job as a shop assistant, although his increasing criminal activities enabled him to indulge in a flamboyant lifestyle