THE brother of a Catholic teenager murdered almost 50 years ago has revealed how he remains haunted by the circumstances of his death.
Paul Armstrong (18) was tortured and shot dead by the UVF in north Belfast.
Now in a moving new book his campaigning brother Gerry Armstrong has revealed how the brutal murder impacted his family.
A Young Life Stolen: A memoir of growing up in war torn Belfast, which was written with the support of Relatives For Justice, offers a raw account of how the Paul's killing ripped through family life.
Mr Armstrong, who includes some of his own poetry in the book, wants his brother's story to be known and remembered.
A seaman by profession, Paul's body was found in a derelict bakery at Byron Street in the Oldpark area on November 8, 1974.
He had last been seen seven hours later as he walked through the New Lodge area. He had been beaten and shot four times in the head.
The killing was later claimed by the Protestant Action Force, a cover name for the UVF.
A caller to the Samaritans claimed the killing was in revenge for the blinding of an RUC man in Stewartstown earlier in the week and warned of more violence in the wake of IRA bombs in Guildford in England.
Mr Armstrong believes his family has "been left in the wilderness for far too long".
And while the RUC, Historical Enquiries Team and Police Ombudsman have examined the case, Mr Armstrong is disappointed by the outcome.
"I suppose this has been eating away at me all these years," he wrote.
"I’m not getting any younger; my health could be better.
"Then that phrase would crop up: “Gerry, you will make yourself ill”.
"Well Paul’s brutal torture and murder didn’t make me ill. But the fact of the matter is, the investigation or lack of it, could in many ways, be a big factor in that."
Mr Armstrong said the manner of his brother's death had a "profound effect" on the lives of his family.
"None was more affected than, our late mother, Mary, who never even made the short trip to St Vincent de Paul’s chapel to attend her young son’s funeral," he reveals.
He revealed his mother never visited Milltown Cemetery, where her son was buried.
"For years I couldn’t get my head round the brutal murder of our Paul, plus the fact that what torture had they inflicted on his young, scared body" he added.
"He must have been terrified and still to this day this thought goes through my mind, so I can’t even imagine the heartbreak my mother was going through and lived with for years until she died, some years later, most likely with a broken heart."