Patrick Byrne was a 27 year old irish labourer. On 23 December 1959 the police were called to investigate an attack that had occurred on a 21 year old girl call Margaret Brown. She had been in the ground floor laundry room of the YWCA. She had screamed and the man had ran away. The police searched the building and checked all the rooms. Being unable to enter one room they forced the door. They were greeted by the sight of a headless body of a young woman on the floor and the head on the bed.

The body was that of 29 year old Stephanie Baird and it was was naked and had been mutilated. The cause of Death was actually strangulation. A search of the room found no significant fingerprints but did turn up a note that read 'This is the thing I thought would never come.' A full-scale search of the surrounding area failed to turn up anything of significance.

The state the body was in when the police found it left no doubt that the crime was sexually motivated.

Weeks of routine investigations followed in which over 20,000 men were interviewed. Byrne broke down under questioning and was arrested and charged. In March 1960 he was tried at Birmingham Assizes Court and was found guilty and sentenced to Life Imprisonment.

Patrick Joseph Byrne

On 23rd December 1959 police were called the YMCA hostel in Birmingham following a report of an attack on a young woman. The woman, Margaret Brown, had been working in the laundry room when she had been attacked but she had screamed and her attacker had run off.

The rooms and grounds of the hostel were searched and, when police broke down the door to Room 4, in an annexe, they found the naked, headless, sexually assaulted body of 29-year-old Stephanie Baird lying on the floor of her room. On the bed was her severed head.

A search of the room found no significant fingerprints but did turn up a note that read 'This is the thing I thought would never come.' A full-scale search of the surrounding area failed to turn up anything of significance.

Over the next few weeks some 20,000 men were interviewed by police. Eventually police interviewed Patrick Byrne. He now lived in Warrington, but had previously lived near the YMCA hostel. He became agitated when police asked for his fingerprints and it was not long before he confessed to the killing.

He was tried at Birmingham Assizes in March 1960. He pleaded dimished responsibility and medical evidence was given that described Byrne as an aggresive psychopath with a long history of sexual abnormality. He was, however, found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The verdict was later reduced to that of manslaughter upon appeal, but it did not alter the sentence.

Murder-UK.com

  

Margaret Brown, 21.

Stephanie Baird, 29.