‘Limbs in the Loch’ killer loses appeal bid
A killer who raped and murdered a teenage boy in 1999 has been refused leave to appeal against his conviction at the Supreme Court.
William Beggs, 47, was told by the London court yesterday that he could not appeal.
He became known as the ‘Limbs in the Loch’ killer for the murder of 18 year-old Tesco worker Barry Wallace in December 1999.
It is thought he drugged and raped the teenager before dismembering his body. Wallace’s limbs and torso were found in Loch Lomond, while his head was washed up on an Ayrshire beach.
Beggs was jailed for life in October 2001 and ordered to serve at least 20 years in custody. After the murder, he escaped to Amsterdam where he eventually surrendered to police.
He worked in an Edinburgh call centre and lived in Kilmarnock, the town where Wallace was last seen on December 4th 1999.
A regular on the city’s gay scene, he once told a friend he liked to cruise in his car at night, looking to pick up “young guys”
He was jailed in 1987 for killing a barman he met in a gay club and was described by police as “a serial killer in the making”.
The 1987 conviction was later overturned on a technicality by the Court of Appeal.
Beggs also served three years for drugging and slashing the leg of a man in 1991. The victim, who Beggs picked up in a gay bar, escaped by jumping from a window.
