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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Nathan Bevan & Benjamin Roberts-Haslam

Family of Merseyside man killed by Peter Moore find out how he died 26 years later

The family of a man killed by serial killer Peter Moore have finally found out how he died 26-years later.

Edward Carthy was the second person killed at the hands of serial sex attacker Peter Moore.

Moore owned a cinema in Rhyl when he went on a murder spree that took the lives of four men in the 90s.

READ MORE: Woman clung on for her life before 80ft fall in front of horrified boyfriend

Despite the length of time since the brutal killings, Edward's family have claimed they never knew the truth behind the death of the 28-year-old from Birkenhead.

At the time, gruesome newspaper articles, as well as Moore's sadistic boasts, suggested that his body had been decapitated and his head "kicked around like a football".

The moment the family finally found out the truth is captured in a new BBC Wales documentary that looks back at the murders that shook the country, WalesOnline reports.

Entitled Dark Land: The Hunt For Wales' Worst Serial Killer, it tells of how Carthy's sister Lynne Haygarth contacted Jackie Roberts, a former chief constable of Dyfed Powys police, begging to know exactly what fate befell her sibling.

She said: "There are lots of unanswered questions about my brother Ted being murdered and I want to put a stop to all the horrible rumours and the thoughts going round in my head.

"What I've heard is that his head was cut off and kicked like a football, and Peter Moore himself said he'd run round like a headless chicken."

She added that conflicted with the official line from the police investigation which said Carthy had, like Moore's other victims, been fatally stabbed.

Carthy's sister Lynne Haygarth: "There's not a day that Ted's not talked about. He was really loved" (BBC Wales)

She said: "How do you think that makes me feel? I've lived with this all my life, my children too.

"I want the whole truth, so I can go to my Ted's grave and say, 'It's over now, I've done it. Rest in peace, love."

The programme recounts how Moore - dubbed The Man in Black due to the dark leather clothes he would wear - once waged a campaign of terror across the North Wales coast.

He'd met Carthy at a gay bar in Liverpool in October 1995, before driving him in his van to Clocaenog Forest, near Ruthin, and attacking him.

It would be several weeks before his remains were found buried in a shallow grave in woodland, by which time three more men were also dead.

Peter Moore at Rhyl cinema (BBC Wales)

Moore eventually confessed to killing him after having been arrested for the other murders - even drawing a diagram to help police find the body.

And, more than a decade and a half after he first attended that bleak, snowy scene, Home Office forensic pathologist Dr Donald Waite finally got to put Carthy's family's minds at rest.

He confirmed that, while the head and right arm had indeed been missing, they had most likely been removed "by large carnivores, such as foxes" during the several weeks the body had laid there, covered over with conifer branches.

The nearby discovery of Carthy's skull allowed him to be positively identified via his dental records.

His death had been caused by three stab wounds to the stomach, Dr Waite added.

The revelation that her brother's end would have come quickly is what his sister Lynne had waited more than a quarter of a century to hear.

Fighting back tears at receiving the news, she said: "You would not believe how relieved that makes me.

Dr Donald Waite returned to the scene of the murder he investigated in 1995 (BBC Wales)

"There's not a day goes by that Ted's not talked about. He was really loved.

"I've got 11 grandchildren now and great-grandchildren on the way - he's missed all those glories. It's sad."

Peter Moore was handed four life sentences in November 1996 for his crimes.

He remains locked up in one of the UK’s toughest jails, HM Prison Wakefield in West Yorkshire.

It's unlikely he will ever be freed.

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