Crime Immemorial

Thirty-two-year-old Ian Clarke was a father of three who had worked for fourteen years in nightclub security for a firm called Premiere Security. In the autumn of 2001, he was employed as a doorman at a bar called Barcelona in the city center of Liverpool, England. On the evening of September 8th, 2001, Ian was on his way to work and had stopped his black Vauxhall Vectra at a traffic light in the Anfield area.

Suddenly, a dark-colored Ford Mondeo pulled up alongside him, and someone inside opened fire. Ian was hit at least four times, twice in the chest. The Mondeo then made a U-turn and sped off toward Breck Road. It was later found completely burned out on Redbrook Street in Anfield.

Ian was taken to the hospital, where he clung to life for five days, but he eventually succumbed to his injuries on September 13th.

Though Ian Clarke had no criminal record, police admitted he was “known to them,” and stated that his murder was likely connected to several other gangland shootings that had taken place in the area. Ian’s younger brother Peter, in fact, had recently been arrested for killing a man named Steven Lawlor the previous May, and in October, Lawlor’s brother Tony was also shot dead in a brazen attack by four men in a Transit van. At least four other murders and several shooting incidents were all seemingly linked to an ongoing feud concerning control of the nightclub security business in Liverpool.

Authorities suspected that Ian Clarke’s slaying in particular was undertaken by a hitman as revenge against Peter Clarke for killing Steven Lawlor. The execution-style murder is still unsolved nearly twenty-five years later.