The gunman behind the “public execution” of a father of two was previously said to be at the center of a deadly feud.
Reuben Murphy shot Patrick Boyle twice in the chest at a dead end in Houghton last summer. The masked killer uses an electric motor to carry out the murder with the help of his best friend Ben Doyle.
Murphy, a 26-year-old self-confessed drug dealer, claimed to have been “repulsed by me” during a shooting in the back garden near Doyle’s house. He denied knowing or shooting the 26-year-old victim, while Doyle, 24, said the shooter was a man he refused to name because he was not a “informer”.
READ MORE: Trial for doorbell ringing: The man has been acquitted of murdering a thief
Despite the vast evidence against him, Murphy moaned that Ian Unsworth, QC, was “shocked” by saying he was lying to the jury. He even accused one of the best silks in the country of talking to him “like dirt”.
Now, following Murphy and Doyle’s convictions for murder, ECHO can detail Murphy’s past crimes. And we can reveal that this is not the first murder trial in the Liverpool court in which his name appears.
In December 2019, Dylan Westal, then 29, and Michael Roberts, then 25, were sentenced to life in prison for the cowardly shooting of 17-year-old James Meadows. James, also known as Froggy, was shot in the head while riding a motorcycle in Lime Cross Road, Houghton on October 8, 2017.
Prosecutors said James was shot dead by two men in a stolen black Mercedes as part of a dispute that “got out of hand.” The dispute is not said to involve James, but it is said to have involved Murphy.
The court found that James was “good friends” with Murphy, and his cousin Frankie Murphy – who died after being hit by a car in 2016 – grew up in the same area. Prosecutors said Westal and Murphy were rivals, and James was an innocent victim of their feud.
The Royal Prosecution Service says the catalyst for James’s murder was a dispute between Westal and Murphy’s sister, Marnie Murphy, at a home party in Houghton in the early hours of October 1, 2017. A horrific incident occurred later that day. in front of Murphy’s family home on Barkbet Road.
At 6:53 p.m., about 2 p.m., Marnie made a panicked call to 999 about an armed man outside their address. She said: “Yes, can I have police, please. Police in front of my house have a man with a gun. There is a man outside. There is a man outside.”
Dylan Westal (left) and Michael Roberts (right)
Marnie and her mother, Elaine Murphy, told police they were in their front garden when two men, one in a helmet, appeared on a bicycle with a scrambler. Elaine said the passenger, who was not wearing a helmet, approached her with a pistol in his hand and started screaming, so she threw a brick at him.
She said the man on the motorcycle came out and the attacker fled, but both she and her daughter told police they had no idea who the men were or what had caused the accident. Both women said they did not want to appear in court or have further contact with police.
However, phone records show that Marnie and her uncle Gary Murphy Jr. had spent hours before calling Westall, a gangster tartar previously identified by Merseyside police as a “nominal weapon with a gold status.” And data from cellular sites suggest that Gary Murphy Jr. traveled to Rudgate Road, Whiston, where Westall partner Samantha McDermott lived at the time.
At the time, Ruben, then 22, was serving a five-year sentence in Stoke Heath Prison after being caught with a loaded pistol in April 2015. At just 19, he was riding a bike around Huyton with 8mm brunettes. an automatic pistol loaded with 10 bullets in the pocket of his North Face jacket, which police found when storming his address.
Nigel Power, QC, who is leading the trial against Westal and Roberts, said a phone call to prison involving Murphy, his mother and his sister around 2pm on October 1 revealed what really happened at the party. In an explosive phone call, Murphy described Westal as a “rat,” and Marnie revealed that she had heard Westal threaten to “smear his face.”
Marnie said she knew that Murphy and Westal had “a little nonsense” with each other and that she had confronted Westal and “had a murder with him” before “he tried to knock me out.”
Mr Power claims that Westal and Roberts later appeared on Barkbet Road. He said this was revealed in another prison call, recorded four days later on October 5th, this time between Elaine and Ruben.
Elaine Murphy (left) and her daughter Marnie Murphy (right) come out of court
Mr Power said the call showed Westal had dropped his gun. He suggested explaining why the killers had gone into hiding the following week before claiming to be targeting James.
In that chat, Elaine said that “the little rat” killed all his teeth and everything was killed. ” She told her son, “Grandpa [Gary Murphy snr] he came and tried to shoot your grandfather Ruben. “Murphy replied,” I know shhhh … damn it! ”
Elaine added “your grandfather knocked him out”, to which Murphy replied: “Take it all off him and everything, right?” Elaine replied, “Yes, damn it, I dropped bricks on it.”
When Westal testified, he said the contents of these conversations were “lies”. He denied ever going to Barkbet Road that day.
He told the jury that there was only a “small dispute” between him and Murphy and no dispute between him and Murphy or James. He said Marnie had an argument with him at the party because she heard him call her “Coca-Cola.”
Ruben Murphy, 19, was caught with a loaded pistol
Elaine and Marnie were summoned to court to answer questions about these events, which are said to be key to the murder. But they refused to provide this “critical evidence” and instead fled to Spain in the spring of 2019. Jurors were simply told they could not be traced.
Westal and Roberts were acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter after a retrial in October 2019. The jury’s verdicts meant that prosecutors failed to prove the prosecution’s alleged motive for the murder or that James was deliberately shot by the killers.
Westal was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 22 years. Roberts was sentenced to life in prison for a minimum of 12 years.
Elaine, then 44, and Marnie, then 27, did not return to the UK until after their sentences, when they were arrested at John Lennon Airport and detained overnight in police custody. They spent two nights in custody at HMP Styal and later admitted contempt of court.
Ruben Murphy when he was in jail after being caught with a loaded pistol
Police were able to speak to Marnie on the phone between the first and second trials. But they refused to return, and before the review, they announced again that they would not return until it was all over.
Their lawyer, Michael O’Brien, said they were “involuntary victims” and “unwanted witnesses.” Mr O’Brien said the mother and daughter had given statements to police but left the country out of “deep fear”.
Judge Andrew Menari, QC, told the mother and daughter that this was a “deliberate and rude” contempt of court to avoid being forced to provide “critical evidence”. However, given the time they had spent in custody and accepting their apologies, he spared both of them while Marnie sobbed in the dock.
Patrick Boyle, 26, was shot dead in Huyton on Thursday, July 1, 2021. (Image: Merseyside Police)
Unlike the James shooting case, prosecutors have not given a specific reason why Patrick Boyle was killed. He was shot dead in Newway, near Lordens Road, just before 6pm on Thursday, July 1 last year.
Mr Answorth said the facts of the case clearly showed “some background”. He said that whatever it was, it meant that Murphy and Doyle “felt the need to acquire loaded firearms, transport them on public streets and carry out a deadly attack on Patrick Boyle.”
QC said that Lyme Grove in Houghton, where Doyle lived – just around the corner from the place where James Meadows was killed – was a “hub for launching the fatal attack”. He drew the jury’s attention to a quarrel on that street earlier in the day.
Colorful tribute left at Newway in Houghton, where Patrick Boyle was shot
Murphy said he went to the back garden of an “empty house” next to Doyle’s house to smoke cannabis and smell ketamine. But he said he had an argument with Fraser Brown, an associate of Mr. Boyle, on the road around 12:40 p.m.
Murphy said it was because Mr. Brown owed him money for an old cannabis debt and “took the hook” when he went to jail. Murphy said Mr. Brown chased him with a fence panel before Doyle came out and told Mr. Brown to “get out.”
Following the dispute, the jury heard a man named James Halewood, a friend of Mr. Boyle, call his ex-girlfriend Marnie Murphy. She and her brother exchanged messages that afternoon.
Liver Grove’s Ben Doyle, 24, was convicted of murder in Liverpool’s Royal Courts of Justice on Monday, May 9, 2022.
Meanwhile, Ruben Murphy and Doyle agreed to receive a loaded pistol and a blue-and-white Sur-Ron electric bicycle. This bicycle, now partially disguised in “black garbage bags”, left the back garden gate of a property two houses down from Doyle’s home at 5:40 p.m., just 16 minutes before Mr. Boyle was shot.
Evidence showed that after the shooting, Marnie called her brother around 7:45 p.m. Murphy told the jury she was “crazy” and told him that Mr. Halewood had called her.
Murphy said Marnie told him “my friend and I are to blame” for the shooting, and Mr. Halewood will call him. He said he got rid of his SIM card and bought a new one, not to cover his tracks, but because he didn’t want to talk to Mr Halewood.
Ruben Murphy, 26, of Oak Avenue, St. Helens, was convicted of murder in Liverpool’s Royal Courts of Justice on Monday, May 9, 2022.
The prosecutor’s office said that there was …
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