Judge rules: Husband drowned his rich wife for money

“Serial liar” Donald McPherson, 51, was acquitted of the murder of his wife Paula Leeson, 47, on a judge’s instruction to the jury midway through his trial in 2021.

He carried bundles of cash rolled up in rubber bands and liked to give the impression of being a wealthy man, but in reality he was a “man of straw”, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Ms Leeson drowned in the swimming pool of a remote holiday home that McPherson had booked for a summer holiday in Denmark in 2017.

But the judge in his murder trial ruled that, despite circumstantial evidence, the jury could not be certain in a criminal sense – that is, beyond a reasonable doubt – that he had killed her.

Mrs Leeson’s family brought an action against McPherson in Manchester Civil Court to prevent him from benefiting from her death and her £4.4 million estate.

After hearings earlier this year, Judge Richard Smith ruled Friday that McPherson killed his wife.

In his verdict, he said: “Don intentionally and unlawfully killed Paula by placing an arm hold around her neck, rendering her unconscious, and dropping her body into the pool to ensure her drowning and death.

“Don’s motive for the wrongful killing of Paula Leeson is clear: money.”

Judge Smith said the “crucial question” was how Ms Leeson ended up in water that was only 4 feet deep and was unable to save herself.

He said she must have been unconscious and the distribution of her neck injuries suggested compression from an arm hold by her husband.

He added: “It is no exaggeration to say that lies and dishonesty permeate every aspect of Don’s life. Don will lie to anyone if it serves his interests.

“I cannot imagine the pain and grief the Leesons have suffered over Paula’s death.”

Her elderly father Willy Leeson and her brother Neville sat in the courtroom with their son Ben when the verdict was announced.

They run a successful container and construction equipment rental business in South Manchester, which Ms Leeson helped to manage and where she first came into contact with McPherson, who claimed to be a successful property developer.

Before his wife’s death, McPherson had taken out several secret life insurance policies on her worth £3.5 million alone.

And even though money was running out, he was paying about £500 a month on insurance policies.

McPherson was neither present nor represented in court and is believed to live somewhere in the South Pacific.

Ms Leeson, who was 5’5″ tall, drowned in the pool, which was less than 4′ deep, despite being able to swim and being an otherwise healthy mother of one child.

Lawyers for the Leeson family argue that she could have simply stood up to save herself from drowning and therefore must have been strangled before being thrown unconscious into the water.

The couple married in 2014 after a “whirlwind romance” in a lavish ceremony at a castle in Cheshire.

McPherson, who is from New Zealand and was born Alexander James Lang, met Ms Leeson in 2013. He used the “cover story” that he was an orphan to hide his past after serving a prison sentence in Germany for an £11 million bank fraud.

He pretended to be a property developer and Ms Leeson oversaw the container hire side of her family’s successful earthworks business, which her father Willy, 80, built up in Sale, Greater Manchester, after emigrating from County Wicklow in Ireland in the 1960s.

Mrs Leeson and her brother Neville would inherit the business.

McPherson was described as a “Walter Mitty” who had changed his name several times, been convicted 32 times in three countries over a 15-year period, and whose former wife and child were killed in a house fire.

McPherson told police that on June 6, 2017, he woke up to find Ms Leeson face down in the shallow swimming pool of a holiday home in remote western Denmark that he had booked for the couple.

Her death was initially treated by the Danish authorities as a tragic accident – ​​even though she had suffered 13 individual external injuries.

Within hours, McPherson transferred thousands of pounds from her accounts to pay off his debts, the court heard.

He also “systematically” deleted data from his wife’s phone, which could explain the incident, and did not give the police access to his own phone.

Shortly afterwards, McPherson cleared out his late wife’s belongings from their home in Sale and joined a bereavement group called Widowed And Young, which he called “Tinder for widows”.

He was later arrested in the UK when police investigated his financial situation.

McPherson has always denied any involvement in his wife’s death and after being acquitted of murder, he described the incident as a “tragic accident” in a statement released through his lawyers.

His lawyers had argued that Ms Leeson’s injuries could have been a result of her rescue from the pool and resuscitation attempts, and that pathologists could not rule out the possibility that she might have fainted or accidentally fallen into the pool and drowned.

McPherson’s murder trial was dramatically adjourned by Judge Goose in March 2021 because the jury did not have enough evidence to secure a conviction, as the prosecution was circumstantial. Crucially, accidental death could not be ruled out.

He instructed the jury to return an acquittal in this case.