A twisted killer who escaped justice for almost 50 years has finally been jailed and it has emerged that he was initially given back a key piece of evidence by police – one that tied him to the crime. Dennis McGrory was 28 when he sexually assaulted, stabbed and strangled 15-year-old Jacqui Montgomery in her home in Islington, north London, in 1975.
But McGrory, now 75, was cleared of murder the following year on the directions of a judge and couldn’t be tried again due to double jeopardy laws, where a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime. But the law was scrapped in 2005 and, armed with fresh DNA evidence, prosecutors pushed for a retrial.
Now, 48 years after the horrific crime, the sick pensioner, from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, has been jailed at Huntingdon Crown Court – as swabs from Jacqui’s body produced a one-in-a-billion DNA match.
McGrory was jailed for 25 years and 126 days, but during the retrial it emerged the evil pensioner had been given back a key piece of evidence by police.
Jurors were told McGrory, who is described as a “violent man” and a “bully who terrified the women in his life”, had been out looking for his partner Josie Montgomery, Jacqui’s aunt, when he attacked the teenager.
He was “wild with rage”, and during the attack he ripped out a page from Jacqui’s diary that had her aunt’s address on it, before murdering her.
The teenager’s body was found by her father, Robert Montgomery, lying on the floor of their living room in the early hours of June 2, 1975.
