Mrs Murrell was found dead near her home just before she was due to give evidence at a public inquiry into the Sizewell B nuclear reactor where she was scheduled to present her paper "An Ordinary Citizen's View of Radioactive Waste Management".
But before she could do so, her home in Shrewsbury was burgled and she was abducted in her own car which many witnesses reported seeing being driven erratically through the town and surrounding countryside. The vehicle was abandoned in a country lane five miles outside Shrewsbury but it was three days before her body was discovered. She had been beaten and stabbed and dumped in a wood where she died of hypothermia.
Mrs Murrell was the aunt of Royal Navy Commander Robert Green, a former naval intelligence officer who was wrongly accused of leaking intelligence to Scottish MP Tam Dalyell. This was to the effect that the sub that sank the Argentine vessel the Belgrano during the 1982 Falklands War was carrying torpedoes with nuclear warheads.
Just before Murrell died, Dalyell was asking detailed questions about the Belgrano’s movements before it was sunk. Dalyell later shocked Parliament when he alleged in Parliament that British Intelligence had been involved in Mrs Murrell’s murder.
Many years later DNA evidence linked her death to a burglar who fuelled more conspiracy theories when he insisted that he did not act alone. Many still believe Mrs Murrell’s death was caused by mysterious government agents
This suggestion of shadowy government agencies engaged in all manner of skullduggery is common currency in the anti-nuclear movement. Even Ken McGinley, who always treated the wilder allegations with scepticism believes he was targeted.
Both he and his wife insist their home has been spied on by mysterious men in cars, but more seriously he believes his tyres were deliberately slashed after he left his car at Glasgow airport before flying to London for a meeting.
McGinley recalled how the nearside tyre blew on the motorway as he returned to his home a few days later: “Luckily, I was only doing about 50 mph and managed to guide the car onto the hard shoulder. The tyre was shredded, but I noticed the other tyre had been cut in a most precise way: around the rim, close to the hub. I took the wheel to a garage and they found there was only about a millimetre of rubber protecting the tyre. The garage man said it had been done deliberately.”
McGinley admitted he was rattled, but tried to shrug off the incident, but there were other incidents that disturbed him greatly such as the sudden death of Dr John Reissland, a scientist who was initially put in charge of the study by the National Radiological Protection Board to look into health problems among nuclear veterans.
Dr Reissland had apparently gone to the attic of his home after hearing a noise. As he clambered into the loft space there was a loud bang followed by a fire which killed him. At the time McGinley had been working closely with Dr Reissland providing facts and figures for the study, and a bond of trust had formed between them. Dr Reissland, according to McGinley, was sympathetic to the veterans’ cause, and told him on more than one occasion that numbers of blood cancer deaths and cancer incidents were “very significant.”
After his shocking death, the coroner recorded an accidental verdict, but the anti-nuclear lobby had their suspicions. McGinley’s merely commented that it was a “convenient death” for the government. But there were other occurrences which gave him cause for somber reflection.
Not long after Dr Reissland’s death, he was accosted by two intelligence officers, one British, the other America, as he sat minding his own business on the ferry to Dunoon. He recognized the first man as a Ministry of Defence security officer, the second man he thought he may have seen at the American sub base in Rosyth.
McGinley recalled: “The British guy sat down next to me and asked how I was doing. To be honest I never liked the man and I hoped he would go away, but before I could say anything we were joined by an American, from the Rosyth base who I knew was with naval intelligence.
“I had seen them at the base’s social club, but had never spoken to them. They sat either side of me; they were both big men and I felt intimidated. The American eventually asked me how the campaign was going. I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t understand what possible interest this American could have in my campaign, and I told him so. There was a bit of small talk and eventually the two got up and walked away. The incident unsettled me a bit, but I pushed it to the back of my mind.”
A few days later he was sitting at home when got a phone call from a man with an American accent who introduced himself as “Bill”. According to McGinley: “He said he knew that I took in US men from the sub base and wanted to know if I would have the courtesy to meet him in town because he wanted to speak to me about a private matter.
“I was mystified and suspicious, but said I would go nevertheless. He arranged to meet me at this little hotel, which was in Queen Street, and this guy was sitting in a small lounge at the back of the hotel. He obviously knew me because he stood up the moment I entered. He was only a small guy, and I asked him what it was all about.
“By way of answer he asked me if I had received a letter he said he sent me. I told him I received lots of letters; what was it about? Bill looked around to make sure we were not overheard said he had supplied details of a radioactive leak that occurred on board a U.S. submarine some years ago. He said since then a lot of men had gotten sick, but it had also affected their children. He said he had been reading about the things I had been involved with. He said he meant that in a respectful manner. He wanted to talk to me about it, the reason being… and then he started to cry…
“I just stood there embarrassed. I got him a glass of water. As he composed himself, I told him I had received no letter about American submarines. But I did tell him about the mysterious encounter on the ferry. Bill said that didn’t surprise him as he convinced his mail was routinely monitored and ‘they’ probably just wanted to have a look at me.
“Bill finally blurted out what he had really come to say: ‘We’ve just had a baby, my wife and me… and there are things wrong with him. My wife is very, very upset and we just wondered, because of the things you’ve been involved with, whether you had any paperwork on that. He went on to say he had been warned by his superiors about spreading rumours. He was told he could get into serious trouble.
“I just looked at him and said: ‘Several of my members have had babies born with all sorts of deformities. They think it was because they were exposed to radiation, and yes, I do have some literature on that. Medical papers and so on. Is that the sort of thing you are talking about?’
“Bill nodded, and I asked him if he had been exposed to radiation. He said he had, aboard his sub. He refused to go into details but said it happened a number of years ago in the Pacific, and that some of his shipmate’s wives had also given birth to deformed children. There were quite a few. I asked him what was wrong with his child. He said he had no fingers.
“I told the young sailor I would see what paperwork I had and forward it on to him at the base. Bill told me not to do that. Apart from the fact it might be opened, he was being sent home next week. Could I send it there? I said of course, and he gave me an address. I eventually sent him a pile of stuff, but that was the last I heard of him.”
McGinley was, naturally, troubled by all this. He wasn’t surprised that he might be “a target for surveillance” because he was, after all, a well-known anti-nuclear activist who ran a hotel whose clients were US servicemen from a nuclear sub base.
In fact he would have found it more surprising if they didn’t keep a cautious eye on him. He had already been informed that his phone was tapped. A relative who worked for the Post Office had warned him on the quiet. He was also told his mail was routinely intercepted.