- Hi, YouTube, it's Joshua Miles
and welcome back to my channel.
Today, we're gonna be covering
another solved true-crime case,
and this one is probably gonna be a longer video,
like I've been promising all along.
I'm real excited to be doing these longer videos now,
and in the future, I have got so much planned.
I even might have a few collabs coming up,
which I'm really excited to do,
so don't forget to subscribe and hit that bell icon
to keep you notified when I do those collabs.
It's really exciting.
I'd just like to point out this video is not being made
to cause disrespect or anything like that,
it's just being made to spread awareness
about this case by compiling information
from various public sources on the internet.
Now, with all that being said,
let's delve right into this case.
David Anthony McGreavy was born in 1951
in the English town of Southport.
He is the second-eldest
of what would eventually be six children
to Bella and Thomas McGreavy.
Now, the McGreavy's family were a Forces family,
and this meant the family were relocated quite often,
depending on where Thomas McGreavy, David's father,
would be stationed.
Thomas McGreavy was a sergeant in the Royal Signals.
The constant moving, as you can imagine,
was very, very tough on all the children.
They had to uproot their lives all of a sudden,
make new friends, and go to new schools.
David's mother, Bella, claims that David had been
at his happiest when they lived in Germany.
When David was 15 in 1967,
he left school to fulfill his lifelong dreams
of joining the Royal Navy.
It was, however, when he was in the Royal Navy,
that the first problems would arise.
David would drink very, very heavily,
and when he was drunk,
he was known to have had a very, very quick temper,
and a very, very violent temper
that could flare without warning or provocation.
His first naval posting was on the HMS Eagle in Portsmouth.
David's colleagues were struck
by his arrogance and cockiness,
and as a result of his behavior,
he was often the subject of disciplinary measures,
most notably, it was in the 1960s,
when he was stationed on the RNAS Brawdy in Pembrokeshire.
When he was stationed in Pembrokeshire,
he was actually sentenced to 90 days' detention
due to negligence.
This was all because of him showing up to his watch duty
drunk and agitated.
Whilst he was on watch duty,
he broke into an officer's ward room
and started a fire in a waste-paper bin.
He then raised the alarm for the fire,
but he then claimed he was not responsible for it.
He was the only witness to the fire
and the Navy didn't believe him one bit
that he was not responsible.
The Navy then court-martialed him.
Fortunately for David,
he managed to evade any arson charges.
However, due to him being on watch duty,
he was charged with negligence.
This negligence charge actually marks the beginning
of what would be the end of David's naval career.
While he was in this 90-days detention,
David's commanding officer ordered
a psychiatric evaluation of David.
Interestingly, the results
of this psychiatric evaluation are not known.
It was not ever sent to David's parents,
nor was it published in the aftermath of the crimes
that were committed in this case.
This, personally, says to me
that something notable came up during the psychiatric exam
in relation to David, but for some reason, it was squashed,
or the Navy are just trying to hide it maybe?
I'm not sure, that's a bit of a conspiracy.
Whatever the case, it's a bit suspect
that David's parents haven't seen the results
of the psychiatric evaluation.
In January of 1971,
David actually began writing to a young woman called Mary.
Now, Mary was actually the sister
of one of his colleagues in the Navy,
and by April of that same year,
David had actually proposed to Mary.
And he proposed to her just one week
after meeting her in person for the first time.
Mary had many debilitating health problems
and David's parents didn't like her one bit.
However, this would not stop David.
Due to his arrogance,
he decided not to listen to any of his friends and family,
and just to throw himself into the relationship.
In August of 1971, David was finally discharged
from the Navy on account
of all of his bad behavioral problems.
This had a devastating effect on David,
and with nowhere else to go,
he returned to his parents' house in Worcester.
He then began a vicious cycle of drifting
from one short-term job to another short-term job.
At all of these jobs, he was eventually fired
for his arrogance, his attitude, and his misuse of alcohol.
With all these constant failures in his career,
David decided to throw himself more and more and more
into his relationship with Mary,
and he became obsessed with the relationship and her,
and despite him being unemployed and very poor,
he'd planned out a very lavish wedding to take place
at around Christmastime of that same year.
However, as you can imagine,
this obsession with Mary and the relationship
began to drive Mary away from David,
and then, on New Year's Eve of 1971,
Mary broke up with David.
She called off the engagement.
In the month that followed, January of 1972,
David continued to live at his parents' house.
He was so devastated from losing Mary
that he essentially became a complete loser and a slob.
He never actively seeked out new work
and he wouldn't do anything to help around the house,
and he continued to drink more and more and more alcohol.
His parents, after numerous attempts to try to help David,
they got fed up and they kicked David out later that year.
Fortunately though for David,
he wasn't homeless for long.
By mid-1972, David had moved in as a lodger
with an old school friend of his called Clive Ralph.
Clive lived with his heavily-pregnant wife, Elsie,
and together, they had two children.
They all lived in a two-bedroom house
on Gillam Street, Worcester.
The two children were a four-year-old boy called Paul
and a one-year-old girl called Dawn.
Then, in September of 1972,
Elsie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl
that they called Samantha.
Now, David paid Ralph six pounds a week in rent
and he shared his room with the four-year-old boy, Paul.
Unlike how he lived at his parents' house,
David now actually paid his dues.
He helped out regularly around the house
and helped out with looking after the children.
Clive was a long-distance lorry driver,
so often spent days, sometimes weeks, away from home.
To the Ralph family, David had become a very important
and trustworthy member of the family.
Things were finally starting to look up for David
and despite his alcohol problems that still persisted,
he had managed to keep a job at a local factory.
In March of 1973, Elsie began work as a barmaid
at the Punch Bowl Tavern,
which was a few miles away from the family home.
The couple were putting aside their extra money
for the children's futures.
Due to Elsie working at the bar,
and Clive working away a lot more,
so they could get more money,
David ending up spending a lot more time
looking after the children.
The neighbors described David
as being someone who loved the children so much,
and he was always seen playing with them,
and assumed a father-figure role for them when needed.
Everything was finally working out for David
and the Ralph family trusted him entirely.
David finally had a job and a purpose.
That was all until Friday the 13th of 1973,
a day that would destroy the lives
of the Ralph family forever.
Elsie had been working a late night shift,
like she did most days of the week,
at the Punch Bowl Tavern,
and usually Clive would come
and pick her up from the tavern and bring her home.
And on this day, he did do just that.
Clive helped Elsie close up shop
and they had a last-orders pint together.
While Clive and Elsie were finishing up,
David was at home looking after all the children.
That evening, Clive did the same
as they almost always do.
He left the children under the supervision of David
and then went to pick up Elsie, and as per usual,
David had been drinking.
He'd been drinking in Buck's Hill Pub in Worcester.
He'd been doing this since the early evening
and had had about five to seven pints of beer.
There had even been a small altercation
between David and one of his friends at the pub,
and this was because one of David's friends
put their cigarette butts in his drink.
As David and his friend were having words
about the altercation outside
and were seemingly clearing things up,
Clive Ralph arrived to pick up David
to bring him home to look after the children
so Clive could then go on to pick up Elsie
and bring her home.
What would happen next would be one of the most horrific
and largely unexplained crimes
to have ever happened in Britain.
Somewhere between 10:15 and 11:15,
David lost his temper with the Ralph children.
Samantha, who was the newborn baby,
who, at this point, was seven months old,
had awakened from her nap
and was crying out for a feeding bottle.
David, in a drunken state,
began to shout at the baby from afar,
telling the baby to shut up.
But obviously, because Samantha is a baby,
this had no effect on her.
So David decided to place his hand
over Samantha's mouth to silence her.
In fact, David placed his hand over Samantha's mouth
and covering her nose so hard
that he ended up strangling her.
When Samantha stopped breathing,
David realized and then went immediately
to the family bathroom.
David then grabbed a razor from the family bathroom
and used it to mutilate Samantha, the seven-month-old baby.
He then caused a fatal compound fracture to her skull
by beating her severely.
Once he was sure Samantha was dead,
he then turned his attention to the other Ralph children.
Paul, the now five-year-old boy,
and Dawn, the now two-year-old girl,
were both sleeping soundly upstairs
and had seemingly slept through the entire brutal attack.
David first went into Dawn's bedroom
and strangled her in her bed,
but miraculously, Dawn survived this strangling
and as soon as David realized this,
he grabbed the same razor that he had used on Samantha
and slit Dawn's throat.
David then went and found some curtain wire in the house
and used it to strangle Paul to death.
David had brutally murdered all three Ralph children
but he was not done yet.
After killing all of the children,
David then decided to mutilate them all again,
but David wasn't satisfied with the results,
so he went into the basement of the house,
and found a pickaxe.
He then used the pickaxe
to further horrifically mutilate the three Ralph children,
but David was still not done.
Before fleeing the scene of the crime,
David dragged each of the children's bodies,
one by one, into the back garden.
He then picked up each child and impaled them
on the iron spikes of the next-door neighbor's fence.
Neighbors to the Ralph house heard several loud bangs
and the sound of Samantha crying.
They then saw lights being turned on
and off again in the house.
The lights would come on in one bedroom,
turn off, then turn on in the next bedroom,
and then turn off and then in the bathroom,
and then at the basement.
The neighbors grew so concerned
that they rang for the police
and a patrol car was immediately dispatched.
The police, when they arrived,
knocks on the front door of the house,
but there was no answer,
so what the officers decided to go to the back of the house.
Now, at this point, the officers were under the impression
that it was a potential domestic violence case,
due to the loud banging and the children crying.
It could've been they suspected Clive
to have been hitting or hurting Elsie,
so what they saw next really, really scarred them.
They switched on their torches
and walked round to the back of the properties,
and it was there that they made
the most unimaginable, horrific discovery.
A police officer vomited when he saw the sights
of the three children brutally mutilated
and impaled on the fence.
The police quickly noted
that the children's parents were missing,
and searched the house, top to bottom.
Meanwhile, Clive and Elsie were coming back
from the tavern, and coming down the street,
and when they got to their house,
they weren't being allowed into the front door.
They were being denied access to their own home.
Clive and Elsie would never, ever
return to their home again.
They were immediately taken
to the police station and questioned,
and it quickly became clear
that Clive and Elsie had nothing to do with the murders.
The police told the couple that there had been a murder
and that there was an investigation ongoing.
Elsie became absolutely hysterical
and was actually given a sedative to calm her down.
The focus of the police quickly moved away
from Elsie and Clive,
and moved on to the only other person
that lived in the house, David McGreavy.
David was quickly picked up just a few hours later
on a nearby road to the crime scene.
When he was arrested, he was asking the police
what was going on and categorically denied
having any knowledge of the murders taking place.
Several hours later, during questioning,
the normally arrogant and cocky young man finally broke down
and admitted to killing the three children.
To this day, a motive for the senseless killings
has not been found,
besides David being unable to quieten down Samantha,
even though he made very, very, very little attempt
to stop her from crying.
It would've been as easy as giving the feed bottle
to Samantha, something that he would've done
hundreds and hundreds of time
whilst looking after the children.
There was no motive at all
for killing the two other children.
Like I said earlier, everyone who knew David
claims that he had a massive love for children,
and there was nothing in his past to suggest otherwise.
When David was asked at a later date
about his motives for committing the crime, he simply said,
"That's something that I'm trying to figure out."
On Monday, the 16th of April, 1973,
David made the first
of what would be 10 appearances in court.
His hearing lasted all of 10 minutes
before he was charged with the murders
of the three Ralph children.
It was just 10 weeks after the murders that the trial began
and David entered the trial with a guilty plea.
Some of the injuries to the children were so horrific
that the prosecution refused to bring them up in court.
The trial lasted all of eight minutes.
On the 30th of July, 1973,
David McGreavy was sentenced to life imprisonment
for the murders of the three Ralph children.
His minimum term served was set at no less than 20 years
before he would even be considered for any kind of parole.
In prison, as a child killer,
David was the subject of a lot of hatred from the inmates.
He had been attacked and assaulted on several occasions.
His cell was regularly trashed and smashed up,
and inmates peed and excremented on all of his possessions.
He spent the majority of his time in prison
living under Rule 43,
which is a rule of protection that caters
for prisoners that are vulnerable
and prisoners that are requiring protection.
Several times during his sentence,
he was moved back into the general population
from these protected areas,
and every single time he was moved back
into the general population,
he was attacked and assaulted again,
so they had to put him back into the protection zones.
Since being incarnated,
David has applied for parole nine times,
and each time, he was denied.
However, in 2006,
David was actually being prepared for parole,
due to the amount of time that he has served.
He was staying at a bail hostel in Liverpool.
He was surprisingly permitted
to walk around Liverpool unsupervised,
and this was done in preparation for his release.
When this was leaked to the media,
his photos were printed on all the newspapers,
national and local,
and due to public outrage,
David was sent back to prison on closed conditions.
In 2009, David tried to move back to open conditions
and used human rights laws
in an attempt to claim anonymity,
and this anonymity order was actually granted.
He would go under the name of Prisoner M,
however, he was told that he would not be released
on parole or anything like that,
he would have to stay in closed conditions.
And this was done in order to protect him
from any attacks from other inmates.
And this order meant that the media were not permitted
to report on anything to do with his parole.
This order lasts for four years
and was quashed in 1013.
By this point, David had served 40 years in prison
for the murder of three children.
When the order was lifted on May 22nd, 2013,
his true identity was revealed.
David's bed was immediately urinated on
and human excrement was smeared all over his cell walls
by other inmates.
He was immediately transferred
to a vulnerable prisoners unit,
where he remains until this day.
In my opinion, he should be serving life in prison
for what he did.
It was senseless and cold-blooded murder.
He should be spending life in prison
and I don't think he should be up for parole at all.
Unfortunately, due to the horrific nature of the crimes
and the trauma, Clive and Elsie's marriage broke down.
They divorced not long after the murders.
In December of 2018, just last month,
after a oral hearing, a parole board report stated
that he had changed considerably over the last 40 years,
and they legally cleared him for release on parole.
This has been a very, very controversial move
that has stirred somewhat of a big outcry in the public.
Now, it's not clear when he will be released on parole,
or if he already has been released on parole.
I was unable to find that out on the internet,
but what we do know is that soon,
a man that brutally murdered three young children
for seemingly no reason,
will walk amongst the British public once more.
Thank you so much for watching this true-crime episode
in my Curious Case series.
If you're new here, I usually upload two videos a week,
one on Wednesdays,
which is typically a conspiracy theory video,
but that might just be any video
that I feel like doing on Wednesdays,
but then on Sundays, every Sunday,
at 8:00 p.m., UK time,
I upload a brand-new true-crime video.
So be sure to subscribe and hit that bell icon
to keep you notified every time that I post.
I'd just like to thank you all
for all your really, really nice comments
on my last video, and thank you so much
for understanding why I had to end that series early,
and I really, really hope
that you start to enjoy the longer videos that I'm posting.
Now, with all that being said,
I'll see you in the next video.
(soft music)
Worcester, Worcester.
His minimum term, his minimum, his, his,
I can't say that word minimum.