A vengeful son jailed for life for the gruesome murder of his mum's bullying ex-boyfriend could soon be freed from prison. William Wilson, known as Billy, burst into the Droylsden home of Michael Tullett, 52, kicked and stamped on his head - then gouged out his eyeball and stuffed it in a can of lager.
In December 2005 Wilson, then 31, from Beswick, was sentenced to life in prison and told he must serve a minimum of 18 years. Later this month a Parole Board hearing will take place to consider his release.
A trial at Manchester Crown Court heard Wilson had a grudge against Mr Tullet, a doorman, over the way he had treated his mother. The couple had lived together, but split up around a year earlier amid allegations he had once tried to strangle Mrs Wilson.
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Mr Tullet's badly-beaten body was discovered at his home on Ribble Walk in April 2004, almost a week after an Easter Sunday argument in the King's Arms pub in Droylsden.
Police said Mr Tullet was violently attacked after returning home. His eyeball was gouged out while he was still alive and was found in an opened beer can in his fridge.
In a bid to solve the grisly murder detectives asked forensic expert Derek Tremain if he could match a bloody handprint on the wall of the home. The wallpaper was too badly damaged to be analysed, but Mr Tremain asked to see Wilson's shoes in the hope that he could still help police.
Speaking about the case in 2021 Mr Tremain told the Mirror that a tiny stone provided the vital breakthrough. He said: "The victim had been stamped on, he had footmarks on him. I said let me have a look at the marks on the shoes.
"I looked at albums of the victim's injuries and could see there were marks down his back that looked like four little keyhole marks. I got images of the shoes and did a weapon and wound overlay and they seemed to match.
"When I looked at the overlay I noticed there was a small abrasion in the bruising under the skin (on one of the wounds). The abrasion matched a tiny pebble in the shoe.
"When I overlaid them, the stone was in exactly the same position. In all the cases I've done I've never seen something so definitive."
Speaking after the sentence Det Supt John Dineen said: "Billy clearly held a grudge against Michael and took this grudge too far when he brutally and violently murdered Michael in his own home. Billy went to Michael's house on Ribble Walk and murdered Michael.
"Michael's post mortem revealed he had suffered an extremely vicious assault, being stamped on, kicked, punched and even having his eye gouged out."
Wilson, of Clydsdale Gardens, was moved to an open prison following a hearing in April 2020. A Parole Board spokesperson said a panel was due to review his case later this month.
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