Trevor Joseph HARDY
AKA "The Beast of Manchester"
Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Rape - Mutilation
Number of victims: 3
Date of murders: December 1974 - March 1976
Date of arrest: August 1976
Date of birth: 1947
Victims profile: Janet Lesley Stewart, 15 / Wanda Skala, 17 / Sharon Mosoph, 17
Method of murder: Stabbing with knife - Strangulation
Location: Manchester, England, United Kingdom
Status: Sentenced to three life sentences on May 2, 1978
Trevor Joseph Hardy (born 1947 in Manchester, Lancashire), also known as the Beast of Manchester, is a convicted British serial killer who murdered three teenage girls in the Manchester area between December 1974 and March 1976. In 1977, he was found guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Murders
Janet Lesley Stewart, 15, was stabbed to death on New Years Eve 1974 and buried in a shallow grave in Newton Heath, North Manchester.
Wanda Skala, 17, was murdered in July 1975 on Lightbowne Road, Moston while walking home from the hotel where she worked as a barmaid. She had been hit over the head with a brick, robbed, and sexually assaulted. Her body was found partially buried on a construction site.
In March 1976 after walking home from a staff party, Sharon Mosoph was stabbed and strangled with a pair of tights prior to being dumped in the Rochdale Canal at Failsworth, Oldham. The bodies of Skala and Mosoph were found stripped and mutilated.
At the height of the hunt for the serial killer, 23,000 people were stopped and searched.
Arrest, trial and conviction
Although Hardy was arrested for Skala's murder after bragging about it to his younger brother, he was freed on the basis of an alibi he had arranged with his partner, Sheilagh Farrow, and because he had filed his teeth so they would not match the bite marks found on her body. He would go on to kill Mosoph six months after being freed.
Trevor Hardy was arrested for the murders of Wanda Skala and Sharon Mosoph in August 1976. He confessed to the murders and to that of Janet Lesley Stewart - who until then had been a missing person. Prior to Stewart's murder, Hardy had been released on parole for battering a man with a pickaxe. He reportedly mistook Stewart for a schoolgirl with whom he was infatuated. Hardy removed Stewart's ring and gave it to another girl as a "love token". Morris had also kept Skala's blood-stained clothes and her handbag as "grisly trophies". The investigation revealed that Morris killed Mosoph after she witnessed him attempting to burgle a shopping centre at night.
At his trial, Hardy fired his attorney and attempted to confess manslaughter; however, the plea was rejected and he was found guilty of murder. On 2 May 1978 at the Manchester Crown Court, Hardy was sentenced to three life sentences for the murders.
More than 30 years after his arrest, Hardy is currently serving his sentence at Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire where he is reported to have a "good work record".
He maintains his innocence and reported sent a letter to Mosoph's relatives blaming his parents. On 23 February 2008, The Times revealed that Hardy was one of up to 50 prisoners in Britain who had been issued with a whole life tariff and were unlikely to ever be released. The whole life tariff was reaffirmed in June 2008 by the High Court.
Manchester locals had long suspected Hardy in the 1971 murder of 17-year-old Dorothy Leyden, and in 2004 family members requested that the Greater Manchester Police re-examine old evidence. Detectives reviewing the cold case believe forensic evidence exonerates Hardy in the murder of Leyden, as DNA samples examined more than 30 years after the crime were found not to match Hardy.
Serial killer will die in jail
By Chris Osuh - Menmedia.co.uk
June 13, 2008
A SERIAL killer dubbed the Beast of Manchester has been told he must spend the rest of his life behind bars for the murders of three teenagers.
Trevor Hardy, now 63, was convicted in May 1977 of killing Janet Stewart, 15, Wanda Skala, 18, and Sharon Mosoph, also 17, and given three life sentences.
Mr Justice Teare, at London's High Court, has ruled that Hardy must serve the whole of his life in jail.
He said Hardy - already one of Britain's longest-serving prisoners - was still protesting his innocence and had shown not a shred of remorse.
On New Year's Eve 1974, Hardy mistook Janet - a Rose Queen at the Harpurhey church she attended - for a schoolgirl with whom he was infatuated.
He stabbed and buried the teenager in a shallow grave in Newton Heath. He also ripped a ring off her finger and gave it to another girl as a love token.
Wanda, a barmaid from Moston, was walking home from work at the Lightbowne Hotel when she was hit with a brick, robbed and strangled in July 1975.
Her body was found on a building site. Hardy had stripped and mutilated her and kept blood-stained clothes and her handbag as grisly trophies.
Sharon, of Failsworth, was stabbed and strangled before her stripped and mutilated body was dumped in the Rochdale Canal in March 1976.
She had been on her way home from a staff party when she caught Hardy trying to break into Marlborough Mill.
Quarries
After the murder Hardy went on the run, living in quarries, railway tunnels and canal banks and violently sexually assaulted another woman in a pub toilet.
Setting a whole-life tariff for Hardy, Judge Teare said the evidence showed `sexual or sadistic conduct' and there were `no mitigating features'.
He said: "Hardy does not accept his guilt and therefore shows no remorse."
Rejecting Hardy's plea that his minimum jail term should be around 30 years, the judge said: "This is a case where the gravity of the offences justifies a whole life order."
He remarked on Hardy's `good work record' in prison, where he is trusted with access to sharp implements. However, he said that could make no difference to his view that Hardy can never be released.
The murders of the three young girls appalled Manchester. Hardy began his killing spree after being released on parole for battering a man with a pickaxe in a row over a round of drinks.
Hardy was arrested for the murder of Wanda after he bragged of it to his younger brother. While in custody, Hardy filed his teeth into points so they wouldn't match the bite marks he had left on her body.
Because of this and an alibi he had arranged, Hardy was freed. Six months later, he killed Sharon.
At his trial, Hardy sacked his QC and conducted his own defence before attempting to confess to manslaughter. His plea was rejected and he was found guilty of murder.
