New beginning – but a tragic end
AUTUMN 1998 represented a new beginning and a bright future for young Southport mum Lynsey Quy.
Celebrations were in full swing at her home on Stamford Road, in Birkdale, as she celebrated her son Jack’s first birthday.
Though strapped for cash, the loving 21-year-old mum had gone out of her way to shower her boy with gifts and a party atmosphere enveloped the new Birkdale home she had secured through Sefton Women’s Aid.
Her violent husband, Mitchell, had been out of the equation for months and life was improving with every day: “Everything’s great – never been better,” Lynsey had noted in her diary: “I don’t miss Mitch at all.”
Quy, a casino croupier, had met Lynsey in 1995 and a whirlwind romance saw them wed within five weeks at Southport Town Hall. An argument on their wedding night, which resulted in Mitchell storming off, was a sign of sinister things to come.
Lynsey’s father, Peter Wilson, said previously: “There must have been some happy times with Mitchell but most of the time they were at each other’s throats.
“They were always arguing and he would beat her. I told her she was better off without him. I told her I didn’t want her to marry him, but you know what kids are like. They always do the opposite of what you say.”
Lynsey’s parents would often witness arguments during family gatherings in which neither wanted to back down.
On one occasion Lynsey even greeted them to her home with the words: “Wel- come to the house of horrors.”
Lynsey twice tried to divorce the man who would frequently beat her but the fatal attraction of Quy proved too much. There were never enough second chances.
Her husband had walked out seven times in four months, before walking out “for good” in April, 1998. But then he returned. Peter added: “It was Jack’s first birthday and that was when he weaseled his way back. He brought a present for him and charmed his way back into her life.”
Tensions were fraught by the end of October and by December Lynsey again told Quy that she wanted a divorce.
On December 17, 1998, she was due to attend an important solicitors’ meeting to discuss the separation. She never made it.
Quy strangled Lynsey to death three days before after a blazing row about missing benefit money he had cashed, before hauling her body into the attic where it lay for 48 hours.
With the help of brother Elliot, her body parts would be disposed of in railway sidings in Birkdale and off a footpath in Princes Park.