Murders of John Greenwood and Gary Miller

The murders of John Greenwood (1968 or 1969 – 16 August 1980) and Gary Miller (1968 or 1969 – 16 August 1980), also referred to as the 'Whiston murder' or the 'Whiston boys' murder', are the unsolved child murders of two 11-year-old schoolfriends in Merseyside, England in 1980 which were said to have "shocked the nation". On Saturday 16 August 1980, the two boys were found beaten and hidden underneath a mattress on a rubbish tip in Whiston, on what is now Stadt Moers Park. They had received serious head injuries from having their heads bashed against the ground, and although alive, later died in hospital. They had not been sexually assaulted, indicating that there was no sexual motive. The case has been described as "the community's worst crime in living memory". A local man who confessed to the murders and revealed knowledge that apparently only the killer would know was acquitted at trial in 1981. However, the unsolved case has continued to receive publicity since, becoming the focus of a rare and unusual campaign by Merseyside Police – supported by the victim's families – for reform of Britain's Middle Ages double jeopardy law so that previously acquitted suspects like the man in this case can be questioned again. This had followed a decision in 2019 by the Director of Public Prosecutions that new evidence found did not meet the high threshold for a double jeopardy prosecution of the original suspect. The acquitted man remains the prime suspect in the case, and has always been the only suspect, but police say that only being allowed to question the suspect could get the 'new' evidence needed to reopen the case.