TWO callous killers who battered a teenager to death with a brick were ordered to be detained for life yesterday. Anthony Murray, 18, and Kevin Dunn, 17, kicked and stamped on their victim's head.
They left 17-year-old Andrew Longmire unconscious in a pool of blood. Then they returned minutes later and struck him with a brick, the High Court in Glasgow was told.
Murray, of 25 Broompark Road, and Dunn, of 128 Laurel Drive, both Craigneuk, were found guilty by a jury of murdering Andrew also from Craigneuk on November 30 last year.
A third youth, Dominic Ferrie, 18, of 127 Laurel Drive, was set free 24 hours earlier after the Crown withdrew the murder charge against him.
During a six day trial the jury heard how Andrew was found dying in the middle of Briarwood Road, Craigneuk by a young policewoman. Beside him lay a heavy bloodstained brick which had been used to smash his head.
His friend, John Richardson, 31, who remembers nothing of the attack, was lying nearby.
The two had been at a dance in the local Orange Hall followed by a party, and were walking home when the assailants struck.
Both were kicked as they lay in the road.
Andrew was kicked in the head and face and stamped on repeatedly. One of them was seen to lift a brick high above his head and crash it down.
The fatally injured youngster was rushed to Law Hospital where he died later that day.
Andrew's injuries were horrific. His upper jaw was so severely broken it was detached from the skull.
The vicious kicks to his body had bruised internal organs.
Afterwards Murray and Dunn went to a teenage party where Dunn told a girl that Longmire ''got leathered for his cheek''. Murray was still bloodstained, and forensic experts later matched blood on his shoes to the victims.
Before the trial several witnesses were given police protection, and one in particular, a teenage boy, was taken away from his home permanentlyto a secret address.
Lord Prosser said that the trial had been particularly harrowing for the jury.
No motive for the killing emerged, but police believe it to be connected with a vicious feud involving two criminal factions in Craigneuk which has erupted in bloody violence several times.
Longmire was the nephew of 34-year-old William Longmire who was shot just before the trial.
Three months prior the uncle opened the door of his house at The Broadway, Craigneuk, when a gunman shot him in the stomach.
Earlier this month Longmire was cleared of supplying cannabis and amphetamine but was fined #300 for illegal possession of two distress launchers and two flares. His brother George, 31, Andrew's father, is currently serving two sentences of five years and four months for drug offences.
Two years ago William Longmire and two other men were cleared at the High Court in Glasgow of the murder of Douglas Bryce, 31, in Craigneuk, who was shot in the neck. Earlier this month, one of the men, Derek McCreaddie, 21, was convicted of stabbing Craig McDonald, 21, to death in a Newmains Street last October.
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