AS she walked into her grandmother’s silent house, young Sharon Owens had a sense of foreboding.
It had been a sanctuary to the 12-year-old since her dad died, but was to become a place that would haunt her for ever.
Sharon was horrified to discover that her grandmother’s killer had been housed in a hostel just minutes from her own home[/caption]
Sharon found the bludgeoned body of her beloved nan Glenys[/caption]
Sharon was informed that Donald Sheridan had been arrested and charged with the sickening crime[/caption]
It was December 1985 and Sharon had just finished her paper round when she entered the living room to find the bludgeoned body of her nana Glenys on the floor.
The 67-year-old had been raped, killed and left wearing nothing but her pants and a pair of tights by a murderer with a twisted fetish.
Almost 40 years on, Sharon was rocked to the core when she discovered not only that the killer had been released from prison, but that he was located just 30 minutes from where she now lived.
“Nana was my entire world, my everything,” says Sharon, 52.
“It’s nearly 40 years since I’ve felt her comforting arms around me. She was like a tiny bird, so petite at 4ft 9in tall, but she had the biggest heart I’ve ever known.
“That terrible day on December 13, 1985, will haunt me for ever.”
Glenys had been Sharon’s saviour after her father, John — who was Glenys’s son — had died three years earlier of cancer, aged 41.
Her mum, Beryl, had struggled and was emotionally distant. The family home was chaotic, so Sharon moved in with Glenys in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.
“My nana had become my sanctuary after losing my dad,” says Sharon, who was one of six children. “Her three-bedroom house was filled with warmth.
“She didn’t have much money, but she had a little leather purse she’d fill with coins and then give to me to spend when it was full.
“She’d buy me Breakaway chocolate biscuits and we’d snuggle on the sofa watching EastEnders.
“She taught me life skills, too. How to be independent, how to manage money and, crucially, how to love and care for others.”
Earlier that fateful day, Sharon had popped in after school to tell her grandmother she would be doing her paper round before heading back for dinner. “Nana was always happy to see me and gave me a big hug,” she recalls.
But Glenys was not alone. Donald Sheridan, a friend of Sharon’s older brother, was at the house.
“He didn’t say anything, he just stared at me,” says Sharon. “Nana loved everyone, but I knew she wasn’t keen on Donald. She didn’t like my brother being friends with him, but she’d welcomed him in with her kind nature.”
It was 9pm when Sharon returned to Glenys’s house and tried to let herself in.
She says: “Nana always left a key on a string behind the front door. You could put your hand through the letter box and retrieve it.
“But when I put my hand through as usual, there was no key. I looked through the letter box and called out, but there was no answer, despite the living room and landing light being on.”
Sharon Owens pictured aged 11, a year before her grandmother was murdered[/caption]
“She’d buy me Breakaway chocolate biscuits and we’d snuggle on the sofa watching EastEnders.
“She taught me life skills, too. How to be independent, how to manage money and, crucially, how to love and care for others.”
Earlier that fateful day, Sharon had popped in after school to tell her grandmother she would be doing her paper round before heading back for dinner. “Nana was always happy to see me and gave me a big hug,” she recalls.
But Glenys was not alone. Donald Sheridan, a friend of Sharon’s older brother, was at the house.
“He didn’t say anything, he just stared at me,” says Sharon. “Nana loved everyone, but I knew she wasn’t keen on Donald. She didn’t like my brother being friends with him, but she’d welcomed him in with her kind nature.”
It was 9pm when Sharon returned to Glenys’s house and tried to let herself in.
She says: “Nana always left a key on a string behind the front door. You could put your hand through the letter box and retrieve it.
“But when I put my hand through as usual, there was no key. I looked through the letter box and called out, but there was no answer, despite the living room and landing light being on.”
We walked into the house together and found Nana dead, semi-naked in front of the fire in her living room. I just screamed and screamed.
“I was thrust into a world without the unconditional love and the security Nana had given me, forced to move back into an uncaring home.”
“I didn’t pass any of my exams, I truanted and I left aged 15 without any qualifications. I didn’t care about anything,” she says. “I experienced flashbacks and felt guilty for not being at home to protect Nana.”
As Sharon grew into a young woman, she tried to put Sheridan to the back of her mind. She says: “I got married and had two children. But thoughts of my nana were always with me.”
Then, in 2021, a conversation with a relative spurred Sharon to search for Sheridan online.
“I felt a cold chill as his name popped up in a news article,” she says. “I was shocked and extremely angry to read he had been released in May 2019.”
The Ministry of Justice has told us Sharon was not notified of the release because when Sheridan was jailed, there was no victim support scheme in place.
Sharon, now living in North Yorkshire, was horrified to discover that her grandmother’s killer had been housed in a hostel just 30 minutes from her own home.
Worse still, he had struck again within a month of being freed, brutally attacking a mum.
She learned that Sheridan had been drinking rum at his probation hostel in Leeds, defying an alcohol ban, before taking money to meet a female sex worker. The woman made a phone call while they were behind a skip in a commercial yard and they began to fight, before some men turned up and stole Sheridan’s money.
Later, he grabbed a woman around the neck as she walked home from the gym, forcing her into a bush. He then made her put on two pairs of tights and asked her to perform a sex act. The victim only managed to escape when a dog walker passed by.
Sheridan was caught after police found the tights at the scene, with his DNA.
Under questioning, he told detectives the victim was not “my type” and he probably would have raped and killed her if she was older.
Sharon Owens as a child[/caption]
That terrible day on 13 December 1985, when she was raped and killed in her own home, will haunt me forever, says Sharon[/caption]
Sheridan also admitted he’d had a fetish for women in their sixties and seventies ever since he had seen a naked nun when he was in care as a child.
He had stolen her tights and wore them to bed.
Since then, he had carried women’s tights around with him and had urges to rape and kill.
On his first court appearance for the latter attack, he even tried to strangle a female dock officer when she took him back to his cell.
In 2019, at Leeds crown court, Sheridan admitted robbery, false imprisonment, committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
‘COLD CHILL’
He was given sentences of 11 years and life with a minimum of five and a half years. The judge said he should only be considered for parole if he “is so enfeebled by age that he is no longer able to pose a danger”.
But Sharon worries that he will be released at the end of his sentence, if not sooner, given the growing pressure to let prisoners out early due to overcrowding.
While he could, in theory, be managed in the community, the Probation Service in England and Wales is already in crisis.
An annual report released in April found that the service has too few staff with too little experience and training. Martin Jones, the chief inspector of probation, said that attempts to “keep others safe” are “consistently insufficient”.
Sharon says: “It beggars belief that this monster was deemed safe to be let out. I feel very angry that I was never even informed and to discover he was living so close to me . . . there are no words.
“He could have come to find me, as I was the main witness in the trial. Learning he had been released unleashed flashbacks and all sorts of trauma that I had tried to mask for years.”
It beggars belief that this monster was deemed safe to be let out.
Sharon
In February this year, Sheridan, 61, was eligible for parole again and Sharon successfully begged the authorities not to make the same mistake as last time, submitting a powerful victim statement.
His 11-year sentence is due to end in 2030, and he has served his minimum life term, so he will be able to apply for parole once more.
A spokesperson for the Parole Board said: “The board has a thorough review process which closely examines and scrutinises any parole release decision after a serious further offence.
“This involves outside experts, judges, psychologists, psychiatrists, as well as senior management, and is in place to identify any lessons that could help prevent further tragedies.”
Sharon admits she finds the thought of Sheridan being back on the streets “utterly terrifying”.
She says: “This man is a real danger to women. He is evil, dangerous and has no conscience.
“Meanwhile, I’ve spent almost 40 years having vivid nightmares about finding Nana’s body.
“This man can never be released. He will kill again, I know it.”
