A loyal paedophile rapist police informant, Kevin Morrison Spital Paedophile, heinously maimed and subsequently murdered a senior at her residence in a grotesque effort to extract her bank details. Kevin Morrison subjected Alice Rye, a 74-year-old widow, to torture at her residence in Spital, Wirral, by restraining and choking her, thereafter sexually assaulting her, stabbing her in the chest, and, post-mortem, inserting a knife into each eye socket.
Kevin Morrison, who perpetrated the assault on December 10, 1996, reportedly consulted the electoral register to identify a woman residing alone. In an unusual development, Kevin Morrison, a paid police informant, approached his contact nearly 18 months later and asserted that an acquaintance had admitted to the murder four days thereafter.
Kevin Morrison was ultimately brought before Liverpool Crown Court in July 1999, where a jury deliberated for three hours before delivering a guilty verdict, identifying him as the perpetrator of the attack. He received a life sentence and must spend a minimum of 18 years before being eligible for parole. In a weekly series examining Merseyside’s criminal history, the ECHO has revisited Morrison’s egregious offences and startling duplicity.
Ms. Rye resided on Poulton Road in Spital, adjacent to extensive fields on the Wirral peninsula. She was a reserved individual who contributed liberally to charitable causes. Rye, a widow since 1986, reportedly engaged actively in her local church and was characterised by the rector as “a popular lady – elegant, dignified, a woman of poise”.
She was the victim of a violent home invasion, recognised by her assailant, who purportedly spent some time at his local library studying records, through her solitary name in the electoral register. Kevin Morrison, residing at a caravan site near Nantwich, pursued his victim prior to unlawfully entering her residence. Morrison allegedly visited Ms. Rye’s residence with a briefcase and deceived his way inside. Upon reaching the courtroom, a prosecutor characterised the murder as “brutal,” “malevolent,” and “atrocious.”
Ms. Rye was discovered on a bed by her neighbour the following day. Despite the heinous nature of the murder and the audacity to execute it within a private residence, the police did not achieve a breakthrough in the investigation.
Other elderly individuals in the community were left apprehensive when Ms. Rye’s assailant was not promptly apprehended. The investigation stagnated until an unexpected lead surfaced. Kevin Morrison, a registered police informant, attempted to “whet the appetite” of Merseyside investigators by revealing previously undisclosed information regarding her death.
Kevin Morrison claimed he had information about a “job on the Wirral”. Seeking a reward and protection, he then tried to incriminate an acquaintance of his. But police suspected Morrison wasn’t telling the truth and following a search of a lock-up he rented in Ellesmere Port, officers found a pair of women’s knickers which had his DNA on.
During his trial, the court heard the knickers had been taken as a trophy, but Kevin Morrison would claim he had bought them for his daughter at a flea market but had ended up wearing them himself because he was short of money.
Forensic evidence has shown the knickers contained female DNA with a one in 69 million chance of not belonging to Ms Rye. During the trial, which lasted nine days, the prosecutor said it was a case of “great unusualness, great horror and great wickedness”. Morrison claimed his friend – the killer – had watched ‘Cracker’ on television and put the knives in the victim’s eyes to confuse the police into “looking for a nutter”.
But the court heard that his account was correct except for one detail – it was he who had committed the murder. His former friend – a dad-of-five from Ellesmere Port, described Kevin Morrison’s accusations as “just a pack of lies”. Morrison, who had part of a finger on his right hand amputated in 1996, also told the trial he would have found it difficult to hold a knife sufficiently well to stab Ms Rye.
But ultimately the jury sided against him and he was convicted of Ms Rye’s murder. Other charges were ordered to lie on the file. Mr Justice Brown, presiding, told the divorced dad-of-three: “The jury have convicted you of a wicked murder. It was obviously planned and carried out in a cruel and ruthless manner. You are a truly evil man and you are also in my view, on the evidence given, very dangerous.”
Although he was ordered to serve a minimum of 18 years before he had the chance of parole, Morrison attempted a High Court bid to ask for early parole in 2013. But Mrs Justice Thirlwall threw out his bid for a cut in the term which could have seen him back on the streets the following year.
Challenging the minimum term, Morrison’s lawyers argued that the minimum jail period should have been 14 years or at most 15 years. But Mrs Justice Thirlwall said that, although age was his only mitigation – he was 71 when he appeared before the High Court – it was “troubling” that he should commit such a “dreadful” offence at that age.
She said had he been sentenced now the minimum term would have been 20 years, but as she could not increase his punishment, it would remain at 18 years.
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