A veteran detective has revealed one of the most disturbing things he has ever encountered in his career, saying it left him “at a loss for words”. Brian Hook, a detective for the Metropolitan Police for 30 years, made the comments during an episode of The Truth About My Murder.
The ITV documentary, presented by forensic pathologist Richard Shepherd, focused on the murder of Peter McMahon, whose former partner Sharon Swinhoe gouged his eyes out and murdered him for financial gain. But it was what happened to his body afterwards that horrified even the most experienced of professionals.
A fatal relationship
Peter, 68, was a retired civil servant who lived alone in Newcastle. He had two grown-up sons and was previously married. But his life took a turn after meeting Swinhoe at the Metropolitan Bar in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Swinhoe was 20 years his junior and Peter was said to be completely “besotted” with her. It wasn’t long until she began to exploit his kindness. Despite being warned by friends, with one saying he would “end up in a box”, he bought her expensive things, and even eventually forked out on an engagement ring.
However, former detective Hook, who went on to become an award-winning author, said: “The relationship would become violent. Peter told friends of his that at one point she actually came at him with a knife but Peter went back to her even after that, and things started to escalate.”
The murder and its aftermath
In October 2012, Peter took a taxi to Swinhoe’s home, thinking the pair were about to rekindle their relationship. However, after arriving, he was met by Swinhoe and a man called Joseph Collins, who was also obsessed with the woman who was a master at manipulating men.
Peter was viciously attacked and was punched and kicked in the face before Swinhoe tried to gouge his eyes out with her fingernails, which caused a fatal cardiac arrhythmia. Hook said: “Swinhoe boasted in prison about the blood that was under her fingernails after she gouged out Peter’s eyes. She was the main player, she was the catalyst, undoubtedly.”
After killing him, Swinhoe went on to plunder his bank account, but first they had to decide what to do with the body. Initially, after failing to dig a hole in the back garden, Peter’s corpse was stuffed into a dog kennel outside, where it remained for at least one month.
“His body was just discarded there,” Hook said. “Never mind the fact that he had been murdered anyway, they treated him with total disrespect and disregard.”
However, after the smell became too much, the body was put in a suitcase, before Swinhoe arrived at the home of Ronald Douglas, another man she was romantically linked to. He then helped her move the body to Collins’ flat in Elswick where it was stored in a chest freezer in his bedroom.
Reflecting on this, Hook said: “I have seen a lot of strange things and circumstances in my career, but I have never come across anybody that knows at the end of the day, they are going to go into the bedroom to sleep, knowing that next to them is a freezer that contains a dead body. And I’m just at a loss for words as to how a human being can reconcile that.”
Justice and sentencing
In December of that year, police found the body of the man Swinhoe treated as a sugar daddy inside the freezer, and eventually she and Collins were found guilty of his murder. Douglas, from Gateshead, meanwhile was cleared of murder but was caged for four years after admitting perverting the course of justice after helping to move the body.
Swinhoe was ordered to serve a minimum of 25 years while Collins was handed a minimum term of 20 years. At Newcastle Crown Court, Mr Justice Globe told a remorseless Swinhoe: “You appear to care more about the rats you kept as pets than the man who loved you, asked to marry you and bought you a £1,100 engagement ring.”
After sentencing, Gerry Sydenham, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “It is clear from the evidence in this case that Swinhoe manipulated Peter McMahon in the same way that she manipulated the two men who would later assist her in his murder and the disposal of his body.”
During the court proceedings, where Swinhoe and Collins both tried to blame each other, the harrowing details about how Peter died left some journalists in tears, while his son at one point collapsed.
Speaking in the documentary about Peter’s shocking murder, Dr Richard Shepherd, who has performed nearly 23,000 autopsies, concluded: “What Peter endured in the final few hours of his life must have been truly horrific.
“But his body revealed the truth of what had really happened to him, how the horrific gouging of Peter’s eyes had pushed his heart to breaking point, and led to his death. And from that, prosecutors were able to get justice by securing a murder conviction.”
Swinhoe meanwhile died aged 52 just eight years into her sentence after being struck down with Covid in 2021 before passing away in hospital. The Truth About My Murder is available to watch on ITVX now.
