Wheelie-bin used to dump body

A RECLUSIVE pensioner was strangled or smothered before her body was put in a wheelie-bin and dumped in a canal, police said yesterday.

Detectives were last nightquestioning two girls, aged 14 and 15, over the murder of Lily Lillie, 71.

Neighbours said she was terrorised by local youngsters for years.

Her body was found yesterday in the disused Rochdale Canal. It was 200 yards from her home in West Street, Failsworth, near Oldham, Greater Manchester, where she had lived for 25 years.

A post-mortem examination found she had been asphyxiated. Detectives believed she was killed at home and her body transported in the wheelie- bin to the canal. She was found in a stagnant, rubbish-strewn stretch of canal between a main road bridge and an old lock.

A neighbour, who gave her name as Linda, said: "She was tormented by kids. They'd bang on the door ask for money, break the windows and poke fun at her. It had been going on a long time."

A man living next door, who did not give his name, said:"Some kids told me that the house had been trashed and the back door kicked in so I phoned the police."

Another neighbour Mary Hale, 73, said: "She kept herself to herself. I think she had a son in Australia but she hadn't spoken to him for years."