Thirty-three-year-old Dr. Michael Meenaghan, nicknamed Spike by his friends, was originally from Glasgow, but had been living in Oxford for quite some time. He was, in fact, a lecturer and research scientist at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University; molecular biology was his area of expertise.
At about four-thirty p.m. on the afternoon of Saturday, December 10th, 1994, Michael was making a pot of tea in the kitchen of his pleasant home on the Blackbird Leys estate when an unknown assailant approached the house and shot him through the window with a shotgun.
Michael managed to call emergency services, but could not get any words out; police dispatchers heard only strangled breathing. When officers arrived at the house, they stormed inside, only to find the scientist dead on the kitchen floor, his chest nothing but a massive bloody wound.
The details in the shocking slaying were frustratingly obtuse. Though neighbors told investigators that Michael had seemed a little nervous lately, keeping his doors locked and his curtains closed at all hours, and changing his phone number to unlisted, none of his friends or coworkers reported any unusual behavior at all, claiming that he had seemed just as friendly and normal as always.
A probe of the scientist’s private life likewise yielded no clues at all as to who might have wanted him dead. Michael had become estranged from his first wife and son some time before, and had dated several women in the years since, but there was nothing particularly strange about that, and none of his former girlfriends reported anything amiss. In fact, police informed the press that Michael Meenaghan’s private life had been essentially “exemplary,” as far as they could determine.
The possibility arose that he may have been murdered because of something to do with his work, but police quickly dismissed the idea, as Michael’s area of study was not controversial in the least and was funded by modest research grants. Rumors that Dr. Meenaghan was involved in studying DNA techniques used to catch criminals were erroneous.
There has also been speculation that Michael’s murder was a case of mistaken identity carried out by a hit man targeting another individual. Given the lack of motive and Michael’s unimpeachable background, this would seem a likely scenario, though authorities have not been able to discover if this was indeed the case, and if so, who may have been the intended mark.
A new appeal to solve the crime was made in 2014, and a large reward was offered, but so far, no new leads have been reported.
Crime Immemorial 