Jail death of Lady in Lake killer was suicide

Park was found asphyxiated in his cell three years ago at HMP Garth in Leyland, Lancashire, where he was serving a life sentence for the murder of his first wife, Carol.

The retired schoolmaster bludgeoned the 30-year-old mother-of-three with an ice axe in July 1976 and dumped her in the lake near the family home in Leece, near Barrow-in-Furness.

Her body was found by amateur divers 21 years later.

This week his third wife, Jenny, told the hearing at Preston Coroner’s Court that he “hated every minute” of his confinement.

Following the discovery of the body, he was arrested and charged with murder but the case against him was dropped in January 1998 when the Crown Prosecution Service said it did not have enough evidence against him.

A second police investigation uncovered fresh evidence by linking him to the knots used to tie up the body and a piece of slate weighing it down.

The 2005 guilty verdict at Manchester Crown Court brought an end to one of Britain’s most notorious unsolved murders.

Park was jailed for life to serve a minimum of 15 years but has always maintained his innocence.

In November 2008, the Court of Appeal rejected an application for leave to appeal. His supporters have been battling to refer the case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice.

Park was put on suicide watch at HMP Garth when it was said he was “very shocked” to lose his appeal. He had been placed on the same regime after he read the report into the prison suicide of mass murderer Harold Shipman.

Mrs Park said her husband was “devastated” when his regular pastoral visits from an Evangelical church elder were stopped the month before his body was found on his 66th birthday, January 25, 2010.

A fellow prisoner told the hearing he thought the visit ban was a “game changer” on top of his sentence and appeal reversal.