He was found guilty twice of the horrific alcohol-fuelled slaughter of a mum, her two girls and the woman’s bed-ridden mother, in the victims’ own home. Yet many have cast doubt on the conviction of David Morris – and, despite his death in August, have vowed to continue the fight to clear his name…
It was hard to say which was the most shocking: the murder of a family of four, or the arrest of two policemen on suspicion of involvement. But there were many twists and turns to come in the seven-year legal marathon that followed.
The saga began at 4 a.m. on Sunday, June 24th, 1999, when firemen were called to a semi-detached house in the former pit village of Clydach, near Swansea. Inside they found the bodies of Mandy Power, a 34-year-old divorcee, her daughters Katie, 10, and Emily, eight, and her 80-year-old widowed mother, Mrs. Doris Dawson.
The house had been torched to make the deaths seem accidental, but the blaze was quickly brought under control after neighbours raised the alarm.
The firemen gave the children mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after carrying them from the house, assuming they were suffering from smoke inhalation.
Then they saw the little girls’ head injuries, and all four victims were found to have been beaten to death with an iron pole discovered in the house…