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United Kingdom·Human Rights

New research uncovers lasting trauma behind 1944 murder of Irish girl by US soldier

Monday, 11 May 2026, 06:23 · 1 min read

More than eight decades after US Army Private William Harrison raped and murdered seven-year-old Patricia "Patsy" Wylie in Killycolpy, County Tyrone (a rural area of Northern Ireland), new research has exposed the crime's long concealed aftermath of generational trauma, community stigma, and family silence. Annie Kalotschke, Patsy's niece, spent 31 years gathering testimonies and combing archives — including a 660-page trial transcript — to document how Harrison, a troubled soldier with alcohol dependency, was executed at Shepton Mallet prison in England in April 1945, though local rumours falsely claimed he had been spared. Kalotschke's forthcoming book, Never Speak of Rope, reveals that the Wylie family faced community blame and lasting psychological wounds, with survivors emigrating and rarely speaking of the crime — a silence Kalotschke, now a mental health therapist, hopes to finally break.

Sources
The GuardianResearch sheds light on GI’s murder of seven-year-old girl in Northern Ireland in 1944 ↗︎
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