Who killed Alison Shaughnessy?
Bob Woffinden, 3 December 1992
On 24 July this year, an Old Bailey jury found Michelle Taylor, aged 21, and her 19-year-old sister Lisa guilty of the murder of Alison Shaughnessy. In the opinion of Detective Superintendent Chris Burke, who had led the investigation, the verdict was ‘brilliant’. Alison, the wife of Michelle’s former boyfriend, had been stabbed 54 times. An uninformed observer might well have reasoned that in due course Michelle and Lisa would take their place as two of the most notorious murderers in English criminal history. Yet I believe that the case against the Taylor sisters is far from clear-cut.
