"The worse part for our family, the leading cause of generational trauma, has been the myths that still exist today. William Harrison, a US soldier who was hanged for the 1944 murder of Patricia Wylie. Photograph: Military archives The result is a yet-to-be published book, titled Never Speak of Rope, and a new understanding of the murder and its consequences."
On 25 September 1944, a US soldier visited the Wylie family in Killycolpy, County Tyrone, and took the seven-year-old daughter Patricia, known as Patsy, across fields to shops. He raped, beat, and strangled her, left her body near a haystack, and went to a pub afterward. He later confessed, was tried, convicted, and executed. The case became a grim footnote in Northern Ireland memory and US military records. Decades later, new research gathered testimonies, family lore, and archives, including a 660-page trial transcript, to show the tragedy’s consequences extended beyond the execution. The work also describes generational trauma driven by persistent myths and a dysfunctional family background involving alcohol dependency.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]