Life sentence for wife killer

A former casino croupier who made television appeals for his 'missing' wife to get in touch has admitted killing her before dumping her dismembered body on waste ground.

Mitchell Quy, 25, was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his 21-year-old wife Lynsey at their home in Southport, Merseyside.

Lynsey, who had two children, was missing for 18 months before police discovered her torso near a roller-coaster at the seaside resort last June.

Lynsey was missing for 18 months

Her arms and legs were found a day later dumped in bushes next to a railway line but her head and hands were never located.

There were gasps of relief from the public gallery in Liverpool Crown Court as Quy changed his plea to one of guilty on Tuesday.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Brian Leveson QC said Quy had "embarked on a deception of breathtaking cynicism".

Quy, of Birkdale, Merseyside, had kept up an 18-month pretence that his wife had just "upped and left him" before he was finally arrested by police.

He claimed the former barmaid, with whom he had a young son, had run off with another man.

Richard and Judy

The facade included interviews with journalists and a television appeal with Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan on ITV's This Morning.

He even told their two-year-old son Jack and four-year-old Robyn, his wife's daughter from a previous relationship, that "Mummy had run away but would be back soon".

Quy had in fact killed his wife and butchered her body after she threatened to divorce him in December 1998.

There was a prolonged campaign of deceit by Mitchell Quy primarily but assisted when required by Elliot Quy

Andrew Edis QC

Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, told the court how Quy married Lynsey when she was 17 and heavily pregnant by another man in August 1995.

He said their relationship began with arguments and continued with arguments throughout its course, with Quy regularly beating his wife.

'Cracker' psychologist

Detectives believe Quy became obsessed with the thrill of having an audience watching his "grief", and was carried away at suddenly being the centre of attention.

Police divers searched lakes throughout Merseyside and Lancashire and brought in a Cracker-style criminal psychologist to try to pinpoint the body.

Quy 'became obsessed with the public attention'

Lynsey's parents, Peter and Linda Wilson, even called in psychic Uri Geller, who told them to look "near water".

Eventually the murder team, headed by Detective Superintendent Geoff Sloan, decided it had enough circumstantial evidence to form a case against Quy.

He was arrested in a dawn swoop on his house on 7 June last year.

Brother helped

The next day he was charged with Lynsey's murder and within hours he admitted what he had done with her body.

Quy's brother Elliot, 22, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to helping dispose of Lynsey's body and will be sentenced at a later date.

Lynsey's father said after the case that he felt nothing but hatred towards Quy.

"It has been very emotional for us but all the family are pleased with the verdict and we have got what we wanted at the end of the day," he said.

"I was convinced that he had killed her and it was very difficult to live with, very difficult to control yourself."