Jordan Monaghan was convicted in December 2021 of murdering three people in Blackburn, Lancashire: his daughter Ruby, who was 24 days old, on New Year's Day 2013; his son Logan, who was 21 months old, in August 2013; and his partner Evie Adams, 23, in October 2019. The same jury convicted him of twice trying to murder a third child of his in 2016. That child survived and cannot be identified for legal reasons.
For years nobody knew the children had been killed. Ruby's death was recorded as a natural illness and the cause of Logan's death was never found. Monaghan was treated as a grieving father and spoke to local newspapers about his loss. Only after the third child stopped breathing twice in his care did Lancashire Police reopen both deaths, and it took a long review by medical experts to show that there was no natural explanation. He was arrested in January 2018 and released on bail. Nearly two years later, still on bail, he poisoned Evie Adams over several days with drugs he had bought on the black market, and then tried to make her death look like suicide.
The trial judge, Mr Justice Goose, described Monaghan as "an exceptionally controlling, selfish and cruel man." The Court of Appeal later ruled that his first minimum term of 40 years was too short and raised it to 48.
Monaghan was born in July 1991, according to the Court of Appeal. He grew up in Blackburn and later worked as a construction worker; at his trial he was also described as a digger driver. Little else about his childhood appears in the court record or in the press reports of the case.
As a teenager he began a relationship with a young woman, born in November 1992, who became the mother of all three of his children. The Court of Appeal summarized the relationship as one strained by his gambling, his poor handling of money and his lack of honesty about it. At his trial he was called a manipulative and controlling gambling addict.
Their son Logan was born on November 17, 2011, and their daughter Ruby on December 8, 2012. Their third child was born in 2016.
The court found a pattern that ran through all of it. Each time the children's mother tried to end the relationship, a child in Monaghan's sole care suddenly became ill or stopped breathing. The first sign came on September 23, 2012. That day she told him the relationship was over, and he then rang to say that Logan, then 10 months old, had swallowed paracetamol. Logan was checked, nothing wrong was found, and the couple got back together. That episode was never charged as an offense.
Ruby Monaghan was born on December 8, 2012, and lived for 24 days. On December 29, 2012, she had difficulty breathing and was taken to hospital. She was discharged on December 31, the last day of the year, and came home.
That night her mother fed her and later told the jury that Ruby had been "absolutely fine." Ruby was settled in a Moses basket on the living room floor, and her mother went upstairs to bed just after midnight. For the first time, Monaghan offered to do the 2 a.m. feed.
At about 1:45 a.m. on January 1, 2013, he shouted up the stairs that he did not think Ruby was breathing. She was taken by ambulance to hospital with her mother, but she never regained consciousness, and she was pronounced dead at 2:45 a.m. Her mother asked a nurse to telephone Monaghan without telling him that the baby had died. When he arrived at the hospital he said, "I know, I know," and claimed a nurse had told him on the phone. The jury heard that no member of staff had made such a call.
A post-mortem examination found no injury. The cause of death was recorded at the time as acute bronchopneumonia; press reports of the trial said her death had been attributed to bronchiolitis. The jury later found that Monaghan had smothered her as she lay in her Moses basket while her mother slept upstairs. In his sentencing remarks the judge said of Ruby: "Her life had barely started and you extinguished it."
Logan Monaghan was 21 months old in the summer of 2013. Their mother later told the court that when her children were born "they consumed my world," and that she loved every day she had with them.
On July 26, 2013, Monaghan told her that Logan had "gone all floppy." The boy was taken to hospital and discharged the next day.
On August 16 and 17, 2013, his partner discovered that Monaghan owed about 2,000 pounds and had a bank account he had kept secret. Press reports described the debts as gambling debts running into thousands of pounds. She told him again that the relationship was over.
On August 17, Monaghan took Logan to Waves, a public swimming pool in Blackburn. CCTV at reception showed the little boy happy, talking and behaving normally, the prosecutor told the jury. Father and son then spent 27 minutes alone in a changing cubicle. They never went into the pool; Monaghan later said he had forgotten Logan's swimming cap. CCTV showed him leaving at 2:33 p.m. with the rain cover pulled down over the pushchair.
He took Logan home, told his partner the boy was asleep, and went out, telling her to wake him. Logan was found lifeless in the pushchair and was pronounced dead at 6 p.m. The jury found that Monaghan had smothered him in the cubicle. The prosecution said he had arranged things so that someone else would make the discovery while he put distance between himself and it.
The post-mortem examination could not establish a cause of death. Obstruction of the airway by another person was listed as one possibility, but the cause was recorded as "unascertained."
In the months and years that followed, Monaghan was seen in public as a young man who had lost two babies in one year. According to Lancashire Police, as reported by Lancs Live, he spoke to newspapers and posed for photographs after the deaths. Speaking to reporters at the time of Logan's inquest, he said that it felt as if history was repeating itself, and that the family was in shock and completely devastated.
Detective Chief Inspector Pauline Stables, who later led the investigation, said she believed he had probably drawn a good deal of positive attention from the grieving around his children's deaths. She described him as very manipulative and ruthless, and concluded that his main motivation was self-interest and attention.
The prosecution put it in plainer terms. In cross-examination, the prosecutor, Duncan Smith QC, told Monaghan that Logan's death had achieved what he wanted, because his relationship with the children's mother had continued. Monaghan replied that the relationship would have continued anyway.
The couple did stay together, and their third child was born on May 13, 2016. On September 18, 2016, after an argument about his gambling, the child's mother again said the relationship was over.
On September 27, 2016, while Monaghan was alone with the baby, then four months old, the baby collapsed. He said he had heard choking. On October 2, 2016, he rang the mother to say the baby was not breathing properly, and the child spent nine days in hospital. The jury found that on both occasions he had tried to smother the baby. They were the two attempted murders of which he was convicted.
The child survived and, the trial judge found, suffered no significant long-term physical harm. The judge treated as a serious matter, however, that the child was later removed from the mother's care by court order and so lost contact with her. The child's identity is protected by a legal order.
The 2016 collapses were the turning point. Press reports at the time of the 2022 appeal said that police reviewed the earlier deaths after the attempt on the third child. Both children had been seen by doctors in the days and months before they died, and, apart from ordinary childhood illnesses, no serious medical condition had been found.
The Crown Prosecution Service said that it worked with Lancashire Police to rule out every possible medical explanation for what had happened to the children. Experts from several fields, including neurology, genetics, cardiology, pediatrics and respiratory medicine, examined the three children's histories. They found no natural cause for the collapses and concluded that the most likely explanation was deliberate obstruction of the airway, such as smothering. At the trial about a dozen experts told the jury that, although an exact cause was hard to fix, imposed airway obstruction was either likely or could not be ruled out.
In January 2018 Lancashire Police reopened the two deaths as a double murder investigation, which NationalWorld reported was named Operation Mayford. The force's Major Investigation Team arrested Monaghan on suspicion of murder and attempted murder and released him on bail. On April 18, 2018, he was interviewed under caution about the children. He denied smothering them and denied causing any of the collapses.
Evie Adams was 23 when she died, and she was the mother of a young child. Press reports at the trial said she had suffered what was described as chronic abuse early in life and became a foster child at the age of 12. The Court of Appeal records Bernard and Yvonne Adams as her parents, and her sister also made a statement to the court. ITV's 2026 documentary about her death described her as a woman who was looking for a loving family.
She and Monaghan had been together for at least 18 months by October 2019, according to the Court of Appeal. Their relationship began while the investigation into his children's deaths was under way. Police warned her about him, and press reports said a court order banned contact between them, but the relationship continued. In messages later recovered from her phone, she described the relationship as "toxic."
The Court of Appeal sets out one of the court orders in detail. In May 2018 a 12-month non-molestation order was made against Monaghan after he threatened to burn down the home of Evie's former partner, saying he did not care if her daughter was inside. He breached it in June 2018, December 2018 and March 2019, and by the time of his trial he had 11 previous convictions for 15 offenses, all breaches of that order or related offenses, among them possession of a bladed article. The order ran out in May 2019.
In October 2019, while Monaghan was still on police bail over the children's deaths, he and Evie went to Blackpool. They argued there, and he damaged the caravan they were staying in. She had begun to talk about ending the relationship. In one message he told her: "I won't keep putting up with you saying we are over."
From October 17, 2019, Evie was ill. The Court of Appeal found that Monaghan, who dealt in illicit prescription drugs, obtained tramadol, diazepam and pregabalin and gave them to her to poison her, telling her they would help. Two days before she died she texted him: "I took all them tablets you gave me." In court he said the tablets were paracetamol. The court found that he controlled her attempts to get medical help, ignoring calls from her doctor's surgery and from the NHS 111 helpline.
On October 24, 2019, at a house in Hazel Close, Blackburn, he gave her a large dose of tramadol, intending to kill her. The Court of Appeal describes the house as belonging to his aunt and uncle; trial reports described it as the house the couple shared. He then left, taking her laptop and phone with him. At 3:07 that afternoon a text was sent from her phone suggesting she had taken an overdose. The prosecution said he sent it himself.
He drove to the Wigan area that evening and later told police he had gone to look at a drainage job at a gym car park in Hindley. The gym's owners told police they had made no such inquiry and did not know him. Records showed that Evie's phone had traveled the same route as his. The prosecution said he was deliberately putting distance between himself and her as she lay dying.
At about 8 p.m. his aunt found Evie on the bedroom floor. An ambulance was called shortly after Monaghan returned. Paramedics tried to revive her, but she was declared dead at 8:50 p.m. One paramedic said Monaghan appeared overcome with grief when told she had died; the prosecution said the paramedic believed he was putting it on.
A post-mortem examination recorded drug toxicity. Press reports of the trial said she died of tramadol and diazepam toxicity, and that her body also contained amitriptyline, zopiclone and pregabalin. The drugs had been given to her covertly, the prosecution said, without her agreement or knowledge.
From the start Monaghan told Evie's friends and family that she had been suicidal, and said she had texted him that day to say she had taken some drugs, a message he did not answer.
In November 2019 he produced a suicide note. He said it had fallen out of a picture frame by chance when he removed the couple's favorite photograph to place in her coffin. Two documents were found: a letter addressed to her child, signed "mummy," and a typed note dated two days before her death. His fingerprints were on the letter and hers were not. A forensic linguist told the jury that the writing was not consistent with Evie's and was consistent with his own, in a highly distinctive way. The Court of Appeal found that both the text and the note were fabricated to suggest suicide.
Detectives in the Major Investigation Team built much of the case against him for Evie's death from phone records. They showed WhatsApp, Snapchat and text messages and calls from his phone on the day she died and in the days before. He had joined a WhatsApp group called "UK Tablets," in which he asked "Who's got Tramadol?" and asked others for "pregabs and blues," street terms for pregabalin and diazepam. A request for pregabalin was sent from his phone five days before her death.
In interview he told detectives that he had not made the calls or sent the messages, that his contacts with the men involved were about work or a Halloween party, and that someone else might have been using his phone or his WhatsApp account. At trial he admitted that he had lied to police about buying drugs. "Because the police were out to get me in my view, so I didn't want to admit buying drugs, so I lied," he told the jury. He said the drugs were for his own use. Asked whether they had anything to do with Evie, he replied: "No. Never."
On January 18, 2021, after what Lancashire Police called a complex and lengthy inquiry by its Force Major Investigation Team, and after consulting the Crown Prosecution Service, Monaghan was charged. The charges were the murders of Ruby, Logan and Evie Adams, attempted murder of the third child in September and October 2016, and two counts of cruelty to the same child. He appeared at Preston Magistrates' Court the next day. He was then 29 and living in Belgrave Close, Blackburn. He was held on remand from then until his trial.
The trial began at Preston Crown Court in October 2021 before Mr Justice Goose and a jury and lasted 10 weeks. Monaghan denied every charge. Duncan Smith QC prosecuted. Benjamin Myers QC led his defense.
The children's mother gave evidence in the second week, describing the night of Ruby's death. The prosecution called the CCTV from the swimming pool, the medical experts and the phone evidence. Monaghan gave evidence himself. He denied harming the children, denied giving any drugs to Evie, and said she had taken her own life. Under cross-examination about the night she died, the prosecutor suggested he had left her to be found by someone else, just as he had left Logan to be found by the boy's mother. "No I did not," he replied.
For the last few days of the trial he stayed away from court, saying he felt unwell. On December 17, 2021, after 26 hours of deliberation over six days, the jury found him guilty of all three murders and of two counts of attempted murder. He was not in the dock to hear the verdicts, which the foreman delivered. The children's mother wept in the public gallery. The judge ordered that he be brought from prison that afternoon to be sentenced.
Monaghan was brought into court and, according to reporters, showed no emotion. The children's mother and Evie's parents watched from the public gallery.
In her victim statement, read to the court by a Lancashire Police detective constable, the children's mother said that all she had ever wanted was to be a mum and to give her children the love and opportunities she never had growing up. "Jordan was their daddy," she said, "he was one of the two people who was meant to love and protect them the most." Instead, she said, he did the opposite. Evie's parents and sister also made statements.
The judge said it was difficult to know why Monaghan had committed the offenses, but that the evidence showed he was an exceptionally controlling, selfish and cruel man. "The trigger to these offences were your volatile relationships," he said, and the result was the ending of the lives of two very young children and a young woman. The court heard that he killed because he could not face being rejected by his partners.
The prosecution argued that the case was so serious that he should never be released, and asked for a whole life order. The judge did not accept that the seriousness was exceptionally high, though he found that, because Monaghan had murdered three people, it was particularly high. He listed the aggravating factors: there were three murders, not two; Ruby and Logan were especially vulnerable because of their age; Monaghan held a position of trust as their father and as Evie's partner; Evie had suffered great pain while he kept her from medical help; the murder of Evie involved significant planning and premeditation; and he had forged a suicide note. He found little in mitigation.
He imposed three life sentences, one for each murder, with a minimum term of 40 years, less the 333 days Monaghan had spent on remand, and concurrent terms of 27 years for each attempted murder. The Court of Appeal's judgment records no separate sentence on the two cruelty counts.
Martin Hill, deputy head of the Complex Case Unit of CPS North West, said that three innocent people had needlessly lost their lives because of Monaghan's selfishness, and praised the dignity the families had shown. Bernard Adams, Evie's father, said it had taken more than two years to get the case to court, and longer still for the children's mother and her family. "Our thoughts are with Laura and the Gray family as we know what they have been going through," he said, adding that the conviction would not bring back his daughter or ease the pain of her absence.
The Solicitor General, Alex Chalk, referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient, arguing that the only proper sentence was a whole life order, or at least a longer minimum term. The case was heard on May 4 and 5, 2022, together with several other high-profile murder cases on the question of whole life orders, before the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, with Lord Justice Holroyde, Mr Justice Sweeney and Mr Justice Johnson.
The Solicitor General accepted that the case did not meet the statutory criteria for a whole life starting point, which, for multiple murders, require that each involve a substantial degree of premeditation, abduction, or sexual or sadistic conduct. The prosecution also accepted that the murders of Ruby and Logan had not involved substantial planning. Monaghan's counsel argued that the judge had dealt with the case carefully and that the attempted murders mainly went to public protection.
In its judgment of July 29, 2022, the court ruled that this was not one of the rare cases in which a whole life order should be imposed even though the criteria were not met. It was satisfied, however, that 40 years was unduly lenient, and it substituted a minimum term of 48 years. The Attorney General, Suella Braverman, said Monaghan had coldly murdered his two young children and his partner and hoped the longer term would bring some comfort to everyone who loved Ruby, Logan and Evie. DCI Stables said the increase reflected his "truly appalling and wicked crimes," and that he had meant to kill his victims covertly and then made great efforts to hide what he had done.
Monaghan also sought to appeal against his convictions. His barrister, Benjamin Myers KC, argued that the charges concerning the children should never have been tried together with the charge of murdering Evie Adams, and that jurors were unlikely to have kept the evidence about her death out of their minds when deciding the counts about the children, as the judge had directed them to do. He also challenged how the jury had been allowed to use the other evidence in deciding whether he murdered her.
On February 21, 2023, the Court of Appeal, sitting as Lord Justice William Davis, Mr Justice Lavender and Mr Justice Murray, rejected the challenge. "We have to assume that the jury did abide by those directions," Lord Justice Davis said, and the judge's narrow approach to the cross-use of evidence could not be said to be wrong in law. The convictions stand.
Monaghan is serving three life sentences. Where he is held has not been reported. Under the minimum term set by the Court of Appeal, he cannot be considered for release by the Parole Board until he has served 48 years, less the 333 days spent on remand before sentence. Release would not be automatic even then.
A Lancs Live report published in March 2026 described him as serving life imprisonment. By October 2026 no later report had described any change in his status, any further appeal, or any other proceedings.
The case has been retold in several television programs. Britain's Most Evil Killers devoted an episode to him in its eighth series on Sky Crime, first shown in September 2023. The Crime+Investigation series Murdertown, presented by Emilia Fox, covered the case in its fifth series. In March 2026, ITV1 broadcast "Prescription for Murder," an episode of True Crime Presents centered on Evie Adams, which included interviews with the victims' families.
Monaghan has never admitted any of the offenses. The question the judge said was hard to answer, why he did it, was addressed only by the police and prosecution: a man who could not accept rejection, and who, in the words of the senior investigating officer, was driven by self-interest and attention.
Proven by the jury's verdicts and final after the February 2023 ruling: the murders of Ruby, Logan and Evie Adams and the two attempted murders of the third child.
Never charged as offenses: the episode of September 23, 2012, when he said Logan had swallowed paracetamol; Ruby's breathing problem of December 29, 2012; and Logan's collapse of July 26, 2013. The Court of Appeal sets them out as part of the history, the first of them straight after the children's mother had ended the relationship, but no court made a finding of guilt about them.
The cruelty counts: two counts of cruelty to the third child were on the indictment. The Court of Appeal's list of convictions and sentences does not include them, and the reports do not explain what became of them.
Details that vary between sources: the cause first recorded for Ruby's death (acute bronchopneumonia in the Court of Appeal judgment; bronchiolitis in press reports); Ruby's age (24 days in the judgment and most reports, "three weeks" in the court's press summary); the house where Evie died (his aunt and uncle's home in the judgment; the couple's shared home in trial reports); the date of Monaghan's first arrest (January 2018 in police and press accounts, with an interview under caution recorded by the Court of Appeal on April 18, 2018); and the court order on contact with Evie (described in press reports as banning contact between them; the Court of Appeal describes a non-molestation order made after his threat against her former partner's home). One 2026 report dated Logan's death to September 2013; the court record gives August 17, 2013.
July 1991: Jordan Monaghan is born.
November 17, 2011: his son Logan is born.
September 23, 2012: after a break-up, he reports that Logan swallowed paracetamol; nothing is found.
December 8, 2012: his daughter Ruby is born.
December 29 to 31, 2012: Ruby is in hospital with breathing difficulties, then discharged.
January 1, 2013: Ruby, 24 days old, is smothered at home; her death is put down to natural causes.
July 26, 2013: Logan "goes floppy" in his care and spends a night in hospital.
August 17, 2013: after another break-up, Monaghan smothers Logan, 21 months, at Waves swimming pool; the cause of death is recorded as unascertained.
May 13, 2016: a third child is born.
September 27 and October 2, 2016: two attempts to smother the third child, who survives.
January 2018: Lancashire Police reopen the deaths; Monaghan is arrested and bailed.
April 18, 2018: interviewed under caution; denies everything.
May 2018: non-molestation order made; breached in June 2018, December 2018 and March 2019.
October 17 to 24, 2019: he poisons Evie Adams; she dies on October 24.
November 2019: he produces a fake suicide note.
January 18, 2021: charged with three murders, attempted murder and child cruelty; remanded in custody.
October 2021: trial opens at Preston Crown Court.
December 17, 2021: convicted; life with a minimum term of 40 years.
May 4 and 5, 2022: Court of Appeal hears the Solicitor General's reference.
July 29, 2022: minimum term raised to 48 years; whole life order refused.
February 21, 2023: application to appeal against conviction rejected.
September 2023: Britain's Most Evil Killers episode first shown on Sky Crime.
March 5, 2026: ITV1 broadcasts True Crime Presents: "Prescription for Murder."
October 18, 2026: still serving life; no later change reported.