Triple murderer’s horrific crimes revealed in detail for first time
The full extent of the crimes committed by a triple murderer, who was jailed for killing two pensioners and then went on to beat another elderly woman to death when he was freed, have been revealed.
Lawrence Bierton, who had been released on licence after serving 24 years in prison, murdered his neighbour, 73-year-old Pauline Quinn, at her Worksop home in 2021 with a coffee table after she refused to lend him money for alcohol.
Almost three decades before, Bierton had battered Elsie Gregory and Aileen Dudhill to death at their home in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, after they caught him trying to rob them.
Following a three-week trial, the horrific details of Bierton’s earlier crimes can now be reported ahead of his sentencing at Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday for the murder of Ms Quinn.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Margery Fretwell, 82, Ms Gregory and Ms Dudhill’s niece, spoke of her horror at learning that her aunties’ attacker had been freed to kill again.
She said: “I could not understand why he had been released in the first place.
“I absolutely cannot understand how someone who killed two elderly ladies has then been put near to elderly people who wouldn’t be able to fight back.”
In June 1995, Bierton bludgeoned and smothered 72-year-old Ms Gregory, before fatally stabbing 79-year-old Ms Dudhill.
Aged 34 at the time, he and Michael Pluck, another petty criminal, had plotted to trick their way into the pensioners’ large semi-detached home in Rotherham to steal from them and obtain drinking money.
Turning up on their doorstep, they convinced the sisters they needed their lawnmower servicing.
After charging them £120 for work they did not complete Bierton took the opportunity to carry out a recce on the house, making an inventory of things he could steal.
Three days later the pair returned claiming they had left some tools on their previous visit.
As Ms Gregory took Pluck into the garden to look for a missing spanner, Bierton hung back in the house looking for cash and jewellery.
But becoming suspicious, Ms Gregory returned inside and discovered Bierton ransacking the kitchen drawers.
Realising he had been rumbled, Bierton did not hesitate in punching the frail pensioner to the ground before bludgeoning her with a blunt instrument, possibly a hammer.
Hearing the commotion, Ms Dudhill came into the kitchen and screamed at Bierton to leave her sister alone.
He immediately leapt towards her, grabbed a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed her, telling Pluck: “I’ve killed the old b–ch.”
Discovering Ms Gregory was still breathing, Bierton picked up a cushion and placed it over her face until she was dead.
He then continued to ransack the house before loading his van with stolen goods and heading to a miner’s welfare club for a drink.
He later returned to the scene of the crime and after dragging the bodies into a downstairs living room, piled furniture on top of them and set them alight.
When he was arrested and his home was searched, a pair of Ms Gregory’s false teeth were discovered in the remnants of a bonfire.
It is not clear whether Bierton stole the teeth as a trophy or were just included in the haul of things he stole.
Bierton moves into bungalow
The brutal and savage murder of two vulnerable sisters shocked the local community at the time and there was relief when Bierton and Pluck were jailed for life following a trial in 1996.
But in 2017, after serving 21 years in prison, Bierton was approved for release on licence by the Parole board.
He was freed under strict conditions but after less than a year was recalled to prison for repeatedly breaching his licence by drinking and taking drugs.
Two years later in May 2020, he was again approved for release by the Parole Board.
In the grip of lockdown rather than being placed in a bail hostel where he could have been closely monitored, Bierton was allowed to move into a bungalow in Worksop, just half a mile from where he had been living when he had murdered Ms Gregory and Ms Dudhill.
Extraordinarily given his offending history, in November 2020, Bierton was placed next door to 73-year-old grandmother, Pauline Quinn.
Mrs Fretwell said she could not understand why he had been released and placed next to a vulnerable pensioner.
The 82-year-old said: “I can’t understand why he was put there. How did that happen? It is completely wrong that he was released in the first place, and to put him where they did is unexplainable.”
Mrs Fretwell said the similarities between the killings were “horrendous”.
“I honestly don’t think people like him are the kind of people who change, even after going to prison..
“The details of what he did to my aunties, and the similarities to what he did to Pauline, are horrendous.”
Speaking about the impact the double-murder had on her family, Mrs Fretwell said: “The funeral itself was awful. It was a relief when he went to prison for me, but especially so for my sister.
“She has passed away now but after the murders she began putting lock after lock on her door because she lived in Worksop. It really affected her.”
Bierton will be sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday.
