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heaven to hell
I hunted down sinister preacher who mutilated corpses in seaside town – but locals turned against ME when he was jailed
IN a calm, unwavering voice, Reverend Emyr Owen explained how he laid severed members on his kitchen table while he ate his breakfast.
The admission sent shivers down the spine of Detective Gwyn Roberts, who had unwittingly uncovered one of the most chilling crime sprees in Welsh history.
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The trusted Welsh Presbyterian minister had been secretly mutilating corpses in the sleepy coastal town of Tywyn, severing penises from the bodies of men awaiting burial in his chapel of rest.
But despite cops uncovering a horror stash of instruments and photographs at his home, Gywn says many residents closed ranks around the popular minister - and even blamed police after Owen was jailed in 1985.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, the retired detective said: “He admitted to me that he’d [mutilated bodies] just three times, but I had my doubts then, and I still do.
“He wasn’t remorseful for anything he had done.
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“There was always an excuse or a reason to justify it.
“Emyr told me that if he’d lived closer to the chapel, he’d have taken the dead bodies home.
“So I don’t know how far he might have gone.
“He could have even become a killer.”
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The toe-curling crimes, which were a first in British history, are examined in a new documentary, The Rev.
The cuban-heel wearing preacher first came to the attention of cops in the early 1980s, as they searched for the author of poison-pen letters that were terrorising the Tywyn.
One, which sparked the investigation, threatened to kill a woman’s four-year-old granddaughter.
Owen was eventually tracked down thanks to the distinctive way he wrote the letter T, as it matched an inscription he had written in a local farmer’s bible.
Behind a row of books I found slides which, when I held up to the light, clearly had male severed genitalia placed on a plate or something.”
Detective Gwyn Roberts
Former detective Gwyn says the moment he stepped into the holy man's house, a sixth sense told him that something was very wrong.
“He was visibly shaken we were there, and his knees were knocking together,” the copper recalled.
“There was a really cold and eerie atmosphere in the house which made me think he was hiding something else too.
“I went to search his house.
“In his study behind a trap door I found a considerable amount of naked male magazines, books on sadism and photos of him and another man naked in front of what looked to be an altar.
“Behind a row of books I found slides which, when I held up to the light, clearly had male severed genitalia placed on a plate or something.”
When confronted, he attempted to claim they were photos taken from a postmortem, which the copper dismissed as “ridiculous", having never known any postmortem that required the removal of genitalia.
Within seconds, Owen bowed his head and admitted he had cut them off dead parishioners before they were buried.
To this day, police have never named the victims of his bizarre mutilation - and the residents of Tywyn have never asked.
Recorded mutilations
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After the sordid admission, Owen then produced a box that contained kitchen knives, handcuffs, razors, syringe, nasal forceps and ropes.
In a later police interview, he admitted he had recorded himself performing one of his bizarre surgeries and also claimed he thought removing the male genitals would allow the dead into heaven.
“Everything he said was to try to help himself at a later date, that’s the impression I had,” Gywn said.
“We had the evidence, so he just admitted everything.
“When asked what he did with the genitalia, he told me he burnt one set, fed the second to the seagulls and threw the third out into the ocean.
“I have my doubts that those were the only times he’d done it.
“I think he did it on many more occasions before he was caught.”
Owen was caged for four years after admitting guilt for three charges of abusing and mutilating a human body awaiting burial, and threatening to murder a four-year-old child, in March 1985,
Sentencing the minister, Mr Justice Evans said Owen’s crimes were “more than enough to turn the stomach”.
Locals remained loyal
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Despite the grim nature of the crimes, Owen’s confession and the mountain of evidence, the town’s residents refused to accept he was actually guilty.
Instead, they accused the police of setting up their much-loved minister.
“Months after I arrested him, I went to a café in Tywyn when with another policeman, as I got up to leave, an old lady said 'have you no shame arresting our minister,’” Gwyn recalled.
“Even after it had been to court, they were still backing him.
“The older generation still protect him even now because of how close-knit the community is.
“Nobody wants to speak about it.”
After the disgraced preacher's release from prison, he decided to do a TV interview about his crimes and claimed it was all done by 'Emyr Ddrwg' - meaning 'Bad Emyr' in English.
This was also what he told police at the time of his arrest, however psychiatric tests from the period found no suggestion the clergyman was unwell.
Hidden life
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The new documentary features testimony not just from Detective Gwyn but also others who knew the reverend as it tries to unpick why Owen committed his crimes.
Several people who knew him in childhood described him as a “loner” and a “mummy’s boy” who kept to himself.
When not living near his church, he lived with two other men in a house in Caernarfon who were believed to be in a relationship with Owen.
After his release from prison, he remained living with one of the men.
Experts in the documentary think the guilt brought about by his religion for his sexuality created the circumstances for him to commit his crime.
Fellow chaplain John Sam Jones thinks that Owen’s shame for his sexuality may have caused his obsession, as some religious figures are known to have self mutilated.
He said: “I can well see how transferred the process of transference could lead somebody away from mutilating their own genitals to mutilating the genitals of a dead body.
“One is able to release that anxiety and self disgust in a way that, whilst is apparent, isn't actually doing harm.
“Although it's doing a different kind of harm, of course, because it's harming the relatives.”
But from his experience of Owen, who died in 2001 aged 78, Gwyn disagrees and thinks that the criminal behaviour was more to do with the priest's inability to accept responsibility.
He said: “I think he was a pathological liar.
“He had no remorse for anything he did and only wanted to justify it.
“There was always something else to blame for what he had done.
“I think he was either a very sick man or a monster, and I told him that.
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“I just don’t understand the sympathy.”
The Rev premieres exclusively on the Icon Film Channel from 9 October. Followed by all major UK digital platforms from 8 January 2024
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