Along with the Mid-Ulster Ulster Volunteer Force's brigade commander Robin Jackson, Kerr was implicated in the killing of Catholic chemist William Strathearn.
Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Patrol Group officers John Weir and Billy McCaughey named him as one of their accomplice; however, neither Kerr nor Jackson were questioned by police or brought before the court, for "reasons of operational strategy".
Kerr was killed in mysterious circumstances; his charred body was found near a burnt-out boat that had exploded as it was being towed on a trailer on the main Newry to Warrenpoint road.
It was an umbrella organisation of local vigilante groups that were set up following the outbreak of violent religious and political conflict known as the Troubles in the late 1960s, ostensibly for the defence of Protestant communities from nationalist gangs.
[1] Kerr was named by RUC Special Patrol Group (SPG) officer John Weir as having been one of the two gunmen who shot Catholic chemist William Strathearn to death at his home in Ahoghill, County Antrim on 19 April 1977.
[6][n 1]The Derry-based human rights group, the Pat Finucane Centre, asked Professor Douglass Cassel (formerly of the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago) to convene an international panel of inquiry to investigate collusion by members of the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries in sectarian killings in Northern Ireland.
The gang comprised loyalist paramilitaries and rogue members of the security forces, including the RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).
[1] John Weir stated in his affidavit, which was published in a judiciary inquiry commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron into the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings, that he had first met Kerr in the company of Robin Jackson in 1974.
[9] Jackson was implicated by Weir as one of the leaders of the two UVF gangs that exploded three car bombs in Dublin's city centre on 17 May 1974, leaving 26 people dead.
The 2003 Barron Report notes that Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland Robert Lowry was aware of Kerr and Jackson's involvement in the Strathearn killing, and that they were not prosecuted for "operational reasons".
McPhilemy claimed that Kerr and the other gunmen, Philip "Silly" Silcock and Ernest McCreanor, had been drinking with a local Portadown solicitor when they concocted the plan to "kill a Taig".
[14] Journalist and author Paul Larkin maintained that Kerr had first coined the nickname "King Rat" for the notorious Billy Wright, leader and founder of the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).
[19] A petrol bomb attack was carried out the previous August by the LVF against the home Kerr shared in Glandore Terrace, Portadown with his common-law wife, Muriel Richardson.
She was a witness for the prosecution at the trial of James Alexander Gribben who was facing charges of conspiring with Kerr to destroy his 36 ft motor cruiser the "Lorna Doon" between 24 March and 8 November 1997 in order to claim compensation from an insurance company.