Failsworth Strangler dies in prison
Reporter: Anna Clarke
Date published: 28 September 2012
THE serial killer dubbed “The Failsworth Strangler” has died while serving a life sentence for the murder of three girls.
Trevor Hardy - who killed three young women in the 1970s - died in hospital two days after suffering a heart attack at Wakefield Prison.
A Prison Service spokesman said: “As with all deaths in custody, the independent Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will conduct an investigation.”
The 67 year old murdered three teenage girls, including Failsworth’s Sharon Mosoph (17), whose naked body was found in the Rochdale Canal in March 1976 - only 300 yards from her Brooks Drive home.
Sharon had been returning home from a work party in Bolton when Hardy strangled her, after she caught him attempting to burgle Marlborough Mill, where she worked.
Hundreds of residents were questioned in a door-to-door investigation. Police also swooped on the Propps Hall Estate to question motorists.
Hardy was arrested and charged in May 1976, when police also linked him to the earlier murders of 15-year-old Janet Stewart from Harpurhey and 18-year-old Wanda Skala, from Moston.
At trial he initially denied the killings but later admitted manslaughter. He was found guilty of murder in May 1977.
The court heard that while in prison for another crime he became fixated on a young woman he had known. On release he allegedly vowed to kill her, later mistaking one of his victims, Janet Stewart, for her. Janet was attacked with a knife around New Year’s Eve in 1974 and buried in a shallow grave.
Wanda Skala was killed in July 1975 after leaving work at around 2.15am. Her body was discovered the following morning. She had been strangled with a sock.
Hardy was sent to prison in 1977, almost two years after he strangled Sharon, and spent time in Manchester, Hull, Wormwood Scrubs and Wakefield. In 1978 inmates at Wakefield poured boiling water over him.
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