Paddy Wilson and Irene Andrews killings

Paddy Wilson and Irene Andrews killings
Part of the Troubles
Victims Irene Andrews and Senator Paddy Wilson
Location	Quarry off the Hightown Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Date	25/26 June 1973
Attack type	Stabbing
Deaths	2 civilians
Perpetrator	John White (loyalist) part of the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF)

The killings of Paddy Wilson and Irene Andrews took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland on the night of 25/26 June 1973. The victims, Roman Catholic Senator Paddy Wilson and his Protestant friend Irene Andrews, were hacked and repeatedly stabbed to death by members of the "Ulster Freedom Fighters" (UFF). This was a cover name for the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), a then-legal Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation. John White, the UFF's commander, who used the pseudonym "Captain Black", was convicted of the sectarian double murder in 1978 and sentenced to life imprisonment. White, however maintained that the UFF's second-in-command Davy Payne helped him lead the assassination squad and played a major part in the attack. Although questioned by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) after the killings, Payne admitted nothing and was never charged.

Wilson was one of the founders and General Secretary of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Irene Andrews was noted in Belfast as a popular ballroom dancer. Their mutilated bodies were found lying in pools of blood on either side of Wilson's car, which was parked in a quarry off the Hightown Road near Cavehill. Wilson had been hacked and stabbed 30 times and his throat cut from ear to ear. Andrews had received 20 knife wounds. The killings were described by the judge at White's trial as "a frenzied attack, a psychotic outburst".