Rich heiress found dead in swimming pool – husband illegally killed her so he could pocket her £4m fortune

A wealthy heiress found dead in a swimming pool was wrongfully killed by her husband so he could cash in on her £4 million fortune, the High Court has ruled.

Judge Justice Richard Smith has ruled that wealthy heiress Paula Leeson, 47, was unlawfully killed by her husband Donald McPherson.

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McPherson, 51, had previously been acquitted of Paula's murder after a judge instructed the jury to find him not guilty.

Today's ruling prevents McPherson from inheriting Paula's £4.4 million estate.

She was found dead in June 2017 in the pool of a remote holiday home in Denmark where the couple was staying.

The following day, McPherson, 50, began transferring large sums of money from her accounts to pay off his debts.

A week after Paula's death, he also joined a group called “Widowed and Young,” which he described as “Tinder for widows.”

Her family asked a judge to rule that McPherson killed the heiress to prevent him from profiting from her £4.4 million fortune.

Before her death, he had taken out seven “secret” life insurance policies on his “doting” wife, according to his 2021 murder trial.

In the event of her death, McPherson would have been entitled to £3.5 million from these policies.

Paula's father Willy, her brother Neville and her son Ben brought the case before Manchester Civil Court.

McPherson did not attend the hearing and is believed to live in several countries in the South Pacific, including French Polynesia and Fiji.

The court found that he had been convicted of 32 counts of dishonesty or fraud in his native New Zealand.

McPherson, who claimed he was asleep when his wife drowned, was also sentenced to prison for his involvement in a £11.8 million bank fraud in Germany.

Lesley Anderson KC, representing the family, said: “The key question remains: what happened in Denmark?”

“It's not a question of whether drowning was the cause of death. It's solely a question of the manner of death. The manner of death is what makes the death unlawful.”

The court was told that Paula, who was 5ft 5in tall, drowned in a pool less than 4ft deep, despite being a strong swimmer and a healthy mother of one child.

Ms Anderson said at the heart of the family's case was the fact that the woman must have been unconscious when she entered the water, otherwise her “natural reaction” would have been to get up to save herself.

The lawyer added: “Therefore, she must have gone into the water unconscious. We assume that it was probably a chokehold or a neck hold.”

Holiday tragedy

The court was told that McPherson was having financial problems at the time, although he always carried a wad of cash in rubber bands.

Paula's family said he “ran out of money,” which “reinforced his financial motive.”

McPherson also “systematically” deleted data from his wife's phone that could explain the incident and showed “almost no dismay or remorse” over her death, the court said.

His trial was dramatically halted in 2021 when Judge Goose ruled that there was insufficient evidence to enable a jury to safely convict.

The trial judge said that the charges were based on circumstantial evidence and that accidental death could not be ruled out.

He explained to the court that there were two possibilities for Paula's death.

The agony of the family

First, McPherson held his wife underwater, overpowered her in a struggle, or pushed her so that she drowned.

Or secondly: Paula drowned by an accident, by stumbling, falling or fainting – which caused her to fall into the water.

Judge Goose added: “Although the first alternative is clearly more likely, that does not mean that a jury could be sure of it based on the pathological evidence alone.”

According to the jury, Paula suffered 13 separate injuries that she could have sustained while being restrained or during an attempt at resuscitation.

Prosecutors claimed that although her death looked like a tragic accident, it was actually a murder pre-planned by her husband.

Her family cried out in disbelief when McPherson was acquitted.

Paula and McPherson married in June 2014 after a whirlwind romance.

Their ceremony, which spared no expense, took place at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire.

Paula was to inherit her father's family business and ran the successful container rental company where she met McPherson.

After his trial, McPherson denied any involvement in his wife's death in a statement through his lawyers.