Cocaine Wars

by Mick McCaffrey

  Because Joey Rattigan was involved in the drugs gang controlled by his brother, there was little doubt that he was murdered as revenge for Brian Rattigan’s murder of Declan Gavin. Joey Rattigan was well known to Gardaí, not because he was a serious criminal or found himself getting into trouble every week: he was known because of his infamous brother. Brian Rattigan doted on his younger brother, but this love did not go as far as making sure that Joey kept on the straight and narrow and stayed out of a life of crime, a life that the older Rattigan had made sure was permanent for himself. Although Joey was not a criminal mastermind, he was still well able to move drugs around, sell small quantities of ecstasy and generally take the adulation that comes on the street when your bigger brother is an up-and-coming gangster. Gardaí described Joey as Brian Rattigan’s gofer. A kid who was handy for running errands and passing messages, but not somebody you would trust to help run a major drugs empire. Apart from his arrest for assaulting the two brothers at Basin Street with Brian, Joey Rattigan had never been in serious trouble with the law. He was stopped twice for being drunk and disorderly, but the offences were so minor that he was cautioned by Gardaí rather than taken to court. In fact, one of his more serious offences occurred on 20 August 2001, just five days before Declan Gavin’s murder, when he was stopped by Gardaí on the Crumlin Road on suspicion of handling stolen property. The offending item was a bundle of twenty-five copies of the Irish Independent, which had been stolen from a nearby newspaper seller. It hardly qualified as the crime of the century, but nevertheless, he was summoned to appear before Dublin District Court. He was fortunate – the only witness against him failed to show up in court. Whether he had heard about the family’s reputation is open to debate, but Joey escaped a conviction. Indeed, when he died, he did not have one single criminal conviction registered against his name. His softness was highlighted when Brian was shot. Instead of getting psyched up and taking on the gunmen who were trying to break down the door while his mother slept upstairs, Joey ran for his life and hid in a bush while his brother was nearly killed. He then started bawling when Gardaí arrived, which is a no-no among criminals who never like to show Gardaí emotion or let the police know that something has got to them. Joey’s softness and inexperience in dealing with hardened and experienced murder detectives was obvious when he was arrested in connection with Declan Gavin’s murder on 2 October 2001. He had originally lied to the Gardaí. During his time in custody, Joey was interviewed on four different occasions, and naïvely agreed to sign two of the memorandums of interview. It didn’t take the younger Rattigan long to break down and admit that he had lied in his original witness statement. He named everyone who was at his eighteenth birthday party and admitted that he went to Karl Kavanagh’s at 4.30 a.m. because he had a ‘free house’. He also named everyone at the Kavanaghs’. The group, he told Gardaí, ‘were all talking about what happened at Abrakebabra, that ‘Deco’ Gavin had been stabbed. They all seemed very happy.’ Joey said that most of the talking was being done by his brother and that they heard about the stabbing on the radio when the 7.00 a.m. news came on. He also described how someone told Shane Maloney to burn his car, but claimed that he did not know who this was. He said that Maloney ‘had arranged to meet someone else up the road’ and then went with that unnamed person to burn the car. Joey also told Gardaí that Brian Rattigan left the family home to go to the Kavanaghs’ at 2.30 a.m., but he did not arrive until around 4.30 a.m. This was the exact timeframe in which Gardaí believe that Rattigan went to Abrakebabra, murdered Gavin, disposed of the evidence and then went back to Cooley Road. Joey Rattigan was released without charge, but detectives could not believe how different he was to his brother. Brian Rattigan would never help the law or give them any nuggets to investigate. Joey had all but implicated his brother in the murder and he was naïve at best. He was certainly innocent, but definitely guilty of an unforgivable crime in the eyes of serious criminals – co-operating with Gardaí. The arrest just showed how much the young Joey Rattigan was out of his depth. He was singled out not for what he did; he was killed because of who he was. Put simply, he was collateral damage.

  A post-mortem examination on Rattigan confirmed that he died as the result of a single gunshot wound to the head from a .38 calibre pistol. Gardaí at least knew what sort of gun they were looking for, and the motive for the murder quickly became apparent. Although the possibility that Rattigan was killed because of some mysterious feud that he alone was involved in was not ruled out, the most likely cause of his death was revenge. Two hundred and seventy-nine questionnaires were completed by residents and neighbours of the Rattigans. A number of witnesses reported hearing the screech of tyres just seconds after a loud bang, which led Gardaí to believe that a vehicle had been present at the murder scene and was probably used when the gunman or gunmen made their getaway. There was little initial progress made in the case. Nobody saw the gunman or was able to identify the vehicle that left the murder scene at high speed. A search team carried out an inch-by-inch search of Cooley Road and Kilworth Road, where the vehicle had been heard leaving the scene, but nothing materialised. After speaking with a confidential informant following the first case conference, a detective learnt that Rattigan had been drinking with three men on the night he died. The detective also found out about the lift Rattigan had received just before he was shot dead. The name Paul Warren was not new to detectives from Sundrive Road. Gardaí knew that he had associated with Declan Gavin before he died.

  Warren was a minor criminal who came from Francis Street in Dublin 8, and was considered to be a junior member of the mob now controlled by ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson. Opinion was divided about whether Warren was capable of coldly walking up to a man and firing a shot into his brain. Some Gardaí believed that he was, while others felt that Warren had merely been a go-between and had given the information about Rattigan’s movements to Freddie Thompson or one of his gang. Gardaí felt the possibility of a hit man being paid to carry out the killing could also not be ruled out.

  After getting the names of the men that had spent the evening drinking with Rattigan at the Pimlico Tavern, it was decided that Ritchie Edwards, Paddy Fogarty and Paul Warren should all be detained for questioning on 17 July. Edwards was arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act on suspicion of being in possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life at the murder scene on Cooley Road. Gardaí interviewed him on eight separate occasions. He answered ‘Nothing to say’ to each question put to him.

  Patrick Fogarty was arrested at his flat in Inchicore for the same offence, and during the course of his questioning at Sundrive Road, inconsistencies began to emerge in his story. During his first interview, he told Gardaí about the night spent drinking with Rattigan, and how he and Ritchie Edwards dropped him to Cooley Road in Edwards’ van at around 2.00 a.m. He claimed that Ritchie Edwards drove off as soon as Rattigan got out of the van. Detectives knew that this could not have been the case, because a number of residents told Gardaí that they heard a van speeding off after a shot rang out. During his fifth interview, Fogarty agreed that he was in the white van and that they drove off after Rattigan was shot. Later during the same interview, he denied this, and said when Rattigan got out of the van they drove off and heard nothing. In the next interview, he contradicted everything that he had said in the previous five interviews, and said that he was at the scene when Rattigan was shot. He said he ‘heard a bang, looked out the window, saw someone running down Cooley Road, saw Joey on the ground, panicked and told Ritchie to drive’. During his next interview, Paddy Fogarty claimed that after dropping Joey off he went to Edwards’ apartment, where they turned on the teletext to see if ‘anything had happened’. He then claimed that the first he heard of the shooting was the following day, when his girlfriend told him.

  Detective Gardaí Eamonn Maloney and Michael Fitzgerald were making serious progress at this stage. Fogarty described how he heard a shot and saw the gunman run down Cooley Road. He th
en admitted to having a conversation with Paul Warren and to telling him that he was on the way to drop Joey Rattigan home. He also conceded that although Paul Warren was dropped off at Islandbridge earlier on the night of the murder, he had not actually seen him going into his girlfriend’s flat. This fact was later confirmed by Paul Warren’s girlfriend, who said that she didn’t see him on the night of the murder but that he phoned her at about 3.30 a.m., asking if he could stay the night. This was a full hour after Joey Rattigan was murdered. It would have given him time to do the shooting, dispose of the murder weapon and clothing, and then look for a bed for the night. Patrick Fogarty eventually told the two detectives that Paul Warren was the person who he had seen running away from Joey Rattigan after he had been shot. Fogarty was then released without charge

  After Gardaí had made their breakthrough in securing Paul Warren’s name from Paddy Fogarty, Warren was taken into custody. He said that he arrived in the Pimlico Tavern at 8.00 p.m. on 16 July, and joined Richard Edwards, Patrick Fogarty and a couple of other people. He stated that Joey Rattigan arrived in the pub at 9.00 or 10.00 p.m., and claimed that Patrick Fogarty had a prior arrangement to meet Rattigan that night. He said that Rattigan’s girlfriend arrived at the pub, after being dropped there by three men, and that Edwards dropped the couple back to Cooley Road. He then claimed that he was dropped off at his home at St Theresa’s Gardens, in the south inner city, because he wanted to pick up some hash he had in his bedroom. This was completely different to the account given by Fogarty, who said that Warren was dropped off outside his girlfriend’s flat in Islandbridge. Warren then stated that he later got a phone call from Edwards and Fogarty, saying that ‘Joey had rung them looking for some coke and asking them to drop it to the house.’ Again this is contradicted by Rattigan’s girlfriend’s statement, in which she said that Paddy Fogarty rang Rattigan, telling him that he was going to drop her home. There was not enough evidence to charge Warren at this stage, and he was released without charge.

  On 26 August 2002, Gardaí at Crumlin Garda Station received a phone call reporting a vehicle that had been abandoned at Windmill Avenue in Crumlin. Garda Diarmuid Maguire went to investigate and found a silver Volvo, bearing a false registration plate 97 D 1251. When Gardaí searched the Volvo, they recovered a .38 Smith & Wesson handgun from the glovebox. A Smith & Wesson .38 is a weapon that used to be issued to all Garda detectives, before the Sig semi-automatic pistol was introduced a number of years ago. It is regarded as a reliable weapon, and one round fired from close quarters would easily kill a person. A forensic examination of the weapon confirmed that it was used in Joey Rattigan’s murder five weeks previously. Every gun leaves a unique characteristic on a bullet it fires. It was also determined that the .38 was also used in the attempted murder of two brothers in the Coombe area on 13 June 2002. Gardaí contacted Interpol with a view to determining where the weapon originated, but the search came up blank. It was likely that the gun, as with most fire-arms used in gangland operations, was imported into Ireland along with drugs shipments from the Netherlands or Spain. A balaclava was also found in the car, as well as DNA traces of two unknown males. A baseball bat with a bloodstain on it was also recovered, as was a cigarette butt, but detectives were not able to match the DNA to Paul Warren. Further investigations led officers to believe that members of Freddie Thompson’s gang regularly used the Volvo. Gardaí did not know if the car was the getaway vehicle used by the person who murdered Joey Rattigan. It seems unlikely, because it is common practice for such cars to be set alight to destroy all forensic evidence. Equally, it is not usual for a weapon that has been used in a gangland murder to be simply left in a car that could – and probably would – be found by police. The fact that there were several DNA matches in the car also puzzled investigators. It is possible that the Volvo was left on Windmill Road for somebody to collect, but a resident reported it to Gardaí, who got to it before any gang member could. Because of the intelligence indicating that members of the Thompson gang used the Volvo, a number of suspects were arrested for questioning. The list reads like a who’s who of Crumlin criminals. Gavin Byrne, a twenty-seven-year-old senior member of the Thompson gang was detained. He had an address on Windmill Road. He gave Gardaí a sample of his DNA but it came back negative.

  Declan Gavin’s brother, Aidan, was also arrested. From an early stage Aidan Gavin’s name began popping up in the Rattigan murder. Gardaí knew that Aidan Gavin was centrally involved in the feud, and that Paul Warren was a friend of his. They believed that he was instrumental in organising the murder to get revenge for his own brother’s killing. He also submitted a DNA analysis, but it came up blank. Freddie Thompson himself, his right-hand man, Paddy Doyle, and Darren Geoghegan were also arrested for questioning. All denied involvement in any criminal acts and all readily gave DNA samples, which all came back as not matching the DNA found in the Volvo.

  Because DNA found on the murder weapon did not match Paul Warren’s, the main suspect in the murder, the Garda case hit a dead end. There is little doubt that Warren either set up Rattigan to be murdered or actually pulled the trigger himself. When first arrested, the story he gave to Gardaí was riddled with inconsistencies. His own friend identified him as the man who shot Rattigan. Nevertheless, without any hard evidence, the DPP decided that there was not enough to secure a charge against him. Gardaí interviewed for this book have a number of theories as to what happened on the night of 16 July 2002. Some say that when Paddy Fogarty and Ritchie Edwards dropped Warren off at Islandbridge, less than two hours before Joey Rattigan was murdered, it was not to go and stay with his girlfriend. It is believed that a member of Freddie Thompson’s gang was waiting for him after being phoned by Warren from the Pimlico Tavern and told that Rattigan was there. Warren and the other gang member then drove to Cooley Road, knowing that Rattigan would be dropped off at his house later in the night. When Ritchie Edwards dropped Rattigan on Cooley Road, the gunman stepped out of the shadows, fired a single shot to Rattigan’s head and was driven away from the scene by the senior gang member in a waiting car. Warren either pulled the trigger or drove the getaway car. In the years since the murder, the name Paddy Doyle has frequently been mentioned to Gardaí as the man who murdered Joey, but it is not known for certain.

  Other Gardaí believe that a professional hit man was hired at short notice to carry out the assassination, and the ‘Merry Christmas Murderer’, Shay Wildes, has been nominated as the most likely hired gun. It is possible that Wildes carried out the murder and gave the Smith & Wesson back to members of the Thompson gang, who then wiped it clean of the DNA of any potential suspect and planted it in the glove compartment of the Volvo, knowing Gardaí would find it. This makes sense, considering the Volvo and murder weapon were not found until six weeks after the murder, and were discovered in a residential area where an abandoned car would naturally attract a lot of attention. The unusual amount of DNA could have been purposefully left in the car by the Thompson gang, who made sure that it did not match theirs, so the murder weapon or suspected getaway car could never be linked to them. Again this makes sense, when all the criminals arrested willingly gave Gardaí DNA samples, especially when co-operating with Gardaí, in any way, is most unusual for these gangsters.

  Freddie mightn’t have been the man who was in possession of the gun used to murder Joey Rattigan, but 2002 ended on a sour note for him. In early December, he was disqualified from driving for 20 years at Carlow Circuit Court.

  ***

  Brian Rattigan’s life was thrown into chaos following his brother’s murder. He quickly went off the rails, and began using serious amounts of cocaine, which just added to his paranoia. In the months after Joey’s murder, Brian Rattigan got a massive tattoo of Joey’s face on his chest, with the words ‘Joey’ and ‘brother’, and Joey’s dates of birth and death in large writing. Despite the fact that he was still in pain after being shot the previous March, and had to wear a colostomy bag because his stomach had been so badly damag
ed, Rattigan swore revenge and told his gang that he wanted the bodies to pile up. He carried out his own internal investigation into Joey’s murder and concluded that Paul Warren was to blame.

  On 14 August 2002, just a month after his brother’s murder, Gardaí from the Bridewell Station arrived at Cooley Road after receiving a tip that Brian Rattigan was in possession of a large amount of heroin. Detective Inspector John McMahon led the operation, backed up by Detective Sergeant Pat Lordan. Gardaí arrived at the house with a search warrant. When they found the front door slightly open, they burst in. Brian Rattigan obviously wasn’t expecting them or had become sloppy with grief, because he was lying in bed asleep with a sock in his hand. The sock was found to contain €27,000 worth of heroin.