A somewhat unusual crime story from the Daily Post archives:
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/corpse-mutilating-gwynedd-vicars-story-11530725Corpse mutilating Gwynedd vicar's story to feature in new TV series19:00, 27 JUN 2016
BY ERYL CRUMPA bizarre crime carried out by a man of the cloth which left a rural town appalled is to feature in a TV programme.
In 1985, Rev Emyr Owen, the minister of Bethesda Chapel in Tywyn was jailed for four years for mutilating three corpses and for sending death threats to people in North Wales in anonymous letters.
The case made national headlines and is featured in the programme Y Ditectif on S4C tomorrow night.
The clergyman was found to have severed the penises of the bodies after they had been laid out in the chapel of rest.
He was caught after police carried out an investigation into anonymous letters including one letter threatening to kill a woman’s four-year-old granddaughter.
In the programme former Detective Constable Gwyn Roberts recalls his time working on the case and explains how Emyr Owen was caught.
He says the well-respected preacher explained he had an evil side to his personality.
Former detective Gwyn Roberts, who investigated the case of Rev Emyr OwenFormer detective Gwyn Roberts, who investigated the case of Rev Emyr Owen
DC Roberts said: "Emyr Owen told me at the time that he was glad that he’d been caught. He said the ‘bad’ Emyr had now gone and that he would never return.
“Looking back at those years - I’m so glad we caught him before he did something worse. We’ll never know exactly what he did and unfortunately he took his secrets to his grave,” he said.
Police found photo negatives of dismembered genitalia arranged on plates at Owen’s home. The Welsh Presbyterian minister then admitted severing the private parts of three male bodies.
The programme features an old interview with Emyr Owen himself after he was released from prison. Vaughan Hughes, the producer, recalls his interview with the minister.
Mr Hughes said: “One of the questions I asked him was simply - why? Why did he carry out such deeds?
“And his response and shocking justification was that men should go to heaven without their sex organs.“
Vaughan Hughes reveals that he had also been a victim of Emyr Owen’s threats.
“In my case, after the programme was aired, Emyr Owen started phoning my home and would make threats. It wasn’t very nice,” he added.
Emyr Owen died in Llandudno in 2001 aged 78.
Y Ditectif is on S4C at 9.30pm on Tuesday, June 28.
