Cocaine Wars

by Mick McCaffrey

  Gardaí Tony Kennedy and Sue Kinsella were on patrol in the Crumlin area when they received the radio message. The two officers arrived at Bunting Road at 6.45 p.m. Garda Kennedy observed a male lying on the grass verge opposite Bunting Park. He was lying face up and appeared to be dead, and there was a lot of blood. Another four Gardaí arrived at the scene within the next two minutes. It was quickly ascertained that the man had no pulse and was dead. Bunting Road was closed to traffic, and the scene was quickly preserved, while Garda Kinsella determined that the dead man was Gary Bryan, from Brookview Crescent in Tallaght. Shortly after the arrival of the Gardaí, Fire Station Officer James Dowling, along with his colleagues, reached the scene at Bunting Road. They parked the fire engine alongside Gary Bryan and used a defibrillator to check for signs of life. It was clear that the dead man was beyond help and it was obvious to all at the scene that he had been shot several times in the body and head. An ambulance arrived a couple of minutes after the fire brigade, and James Dowling requested that they call a doctor to come and pronounce Gary Bryan dead. At 8.00 p.m., Dr James Moloney officially pronounced Bryan dead at the scene. Later that night, Garda Lorcan McCarthy accompanied his remains to the City Morgue in Marino.

  Gary Bryan’s parents were immediately informed about his murder. On the morning of 28 September, they identified the remains of their son to Sergeant Karen Barker from Crumlin Garda Station. That afternoon, the post-mortem examination on Bryan’s remains took place, conducted by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtin. Detective Gardaí Tom Carey and Shane Curran from the Ballistics Section, Detective Garda Pat Flynn from the Photography Section and Detective Garda Eamon Hennelly of the Fingerprints Section of the Garda Technical Bureau were also present during the post mortem. Dr Curtis concluded that Gary Bryan had died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds to the head, neck, trunk and left lower limb. These gunshots had caused injuries to Bryan’s brain, right lung, heart, aorta and liver. There were a total of twelve gunshot wounds to Gary Bryan’s body, six separate entrance and exit wounds. He had been hit in the scalp, the back of the head and had two wounds in the neck, behind his left ear. He had two gunshot wounds in his back, two to his chest, one to the upper left thigh, one to the anterior of the left thigh and one below the chin. Dr Curtin determined that Gary Bryan had no diseases, and toxicology tests carried out on his blood and urine found no traces of alcohol, but a cocktail of drugs was found. Among the substances in Gary Bryan’s body were morphine, codeine, methadone, diazepam and benzoylecgonine, which is a metabolite of cocaine. It was clear from the toxicology report that Bryan had not managed to get himself off drugs – he was obviously abusing them in a big way.

  In the immediate aftermath of Gary Bryan’s death, a murder inquiry was launched from Crumlin Garda Station. Detective Superintendent Denis Donegan and Superintendent Bart Faulkner headed the investigation, with Detective Inspector Brian Sutton in day-to-day charge. Around fifty Gardaí from the local district and national units were involved in trying to catch Bryan’s killer. Because Gary Bryan was the main suspect in Wayne Zambra’s murder (the previous month), there was absolutely no doubt in Gardaí’s minds that Gary Bryan was murdered as an act of revenge. Because it was suspected that Bryan had killed Paul Warren and Zambra, it was always likely that there would be a price on his head. So, nobody was particularly surprised when he was shot dead. Detectives immediately suspected that the Thompson gang had been responsible. The investigation team’s initial findings led them in that very direction.

  The first and most urgent Garda action was to interview everybody who had been in the area at the time of the murder and may have witnessed anything that could help Gardaí to find Bryan’s killers.

  A number of witnesses observed the events before, during and after the murder. The most disturbing account came from a couple who saw the murder take place. They were stopped at the junction of Balfe Road and Bunting Road. The couple saw a man working on his car at the footpath on Bunting Road, and then saw another man approach him. The pair then became involved in a ‘tussle’. A shot was fired and the man working on his car ran across the road and was pursued by the man carrying a gun. They heard a number of loud bangs and Gary Bryan fell to the ground. Both the witnesses saw the gunman then shoot Bryan twice in the head from close range. The gunman then jumped into a silver Subaru, which then drove off down Balfe Road. It was followed by a 01 D silver Fiat Punto. The couple were stuck in traffic behind the Punto. There were two men inside the vehicle. They pulled their hoods and hats off and started to cheer, celebrating the fact that Bryan had just been murdered. The cars then turned left onto the Long Mile Road.

  Valerie White and her mother and sister all witnessed events in the lead up to and aftermath of the murder. Gardaí obviously felt that what they saw could eventually prove to be crucial in solving the case. Margaret White told detectives that she was sitting in her living room and looked out the window and saw Bryan working on his car. A man wearing a camouflage jacket, with the hood up to cover his head, then appeared and ‘lunges’ at Bryan. Gary Bryan then ran towards Bunting Park, and Margaret heard a number of loud bangs seconds later. She then grabbed her two grandchildren to make sure they were safe and remained in her house.

  Linda White was also in the living room, and when she heard gunshots, she rushed out of the house to bring her young son back in to make sure he was not caught up in the mayhem. She then heard four or five gunshots, but could not see what was going on because Gary Bryan’s car was blocking her vision. She then saw a stocky man in an army camouflage jacket running away from the scene.

  Valerie White told Gardaí what had happened before the shooting and what Bryan had said about seeing Graham Whelan.

  After interviewing all the witnesses, Gardaí had determined that two cars were used to carry out the murder and execute a safe getaway: a Subaru Impreza and a Fiat Punto. At around 7.00 p.m. on the evening of the murder, Sergeant Aidan Minnock and Gardaí Jason Miley and Declan Leader came across a silver Subaru Impreza, registration 00 D 7814 on fire outside a house at Camac Park in Bluebell. The car was being hosed down by members of the Dublin Fire Brigade.

  A check on the registration number established that it was fitted with false registration plates which actually belonged to a Ford Ka. The Subaru was stolen during a burglary on a house in Bray, Co. Wicklow, five days before the murder. A technical examination of the car and false registration plates did not recover anything of evidential value, but it was clearly the car that the Gardaí had been searching for.

  On 3 October, Detective Garda David Finnerty located the Punto at Rossmore Lawns in Templeogue, Dublin 6 W. It was registered to the girlfriend of a member of the Freddie Thompson gang, Liam Brannigan. Brannigan was twenty-four and from Bride Street in Dublin 8. The car underwent technical examination and fingerprints were lifted from the glass on the back passenger door. Gardaí already knew that the car belonged to Liam Brannigan’s then girlfriend, so they compared the prints to a set previously taken from Liam Brannigan. It turned out that the prints taken from the Fiat Punto matched Liam Brannigan’s right middle finger. A number of newspapers and other items were recovered from the boot of the Punto, which were sent away for forensic examination.

  Forensic evidence is one of the best ways Gardaí have of solving cases, especially murder cases. Detective Garda Shane Curran, from the Garda Technical Bureau, located a total of seven 9mm discharged cartridge cases and three 9mm cartridge bullets from where Bryan was murdered at Bunting Road. A further cartridge case and three discharged bullets were recovered from the grass verge where Bryan had fallen when he died. It was determined that the cartridges were fired from a Luger 9mm pistol. A technical examination of the empty cartridges and the bullets concluded that they had probably all originated from the same weapon and that Gardaí were most likely looking at the scenario that one gun was used to murder Bryan, and that one gunman was probably responsible for his death. Despite dozens of searches being carried out, the murder
weapon was never recovered.

  After carrying out over 230 lines of inquiry, arresting ten people and taking 200 witness statements, the Gardaí’s theory on the murder was that Graham Whelan was driving on Bunting Road and happened upon Gary Bryan working on his car outside a house. Gardaí believe that Whelan made a phone call to one of his associates and told him that he had just seen Bryan. Detectives believe that a twenty-three-year-old from Drimnagh and a nineteen-year-old from Tallaght were then dispatched to carry out the murder. The twenty-three-year-old pulled the trigger and jumped into the waiting Subaru, which then fled the scene.

  Gardaí had come to this theory from mobile phone records and CCTV footage. In the immediate aftermath of the murder, officers had spent a lot of time attempting to trace the movements of the Subaru getaway car. It drove from Bunting Road onto Balfe Road and then turned left onto Walkinstown Road, right into Walkinstown Drive and then on into Walkinstown Green. The driver of the Subaru then dropped the gunman off at a cut-through to the Long Mile Road, and the gunman escaped on foot up the Long Mile Road. The driver of the Subaru abandoned the car at Kilnamanagh Court at around 6.45 p.m., and left on foot. A short distance away, the driver was confronted by a local man who asked him what he was up to. He ran back to the Subaru and drove onto the Long Mile Road, turned right onto Walkinstown Avenue and onto Camac Park, where he burnt the car out. The driver of the Subaru was captured on CCTV footage. The images of the driver were grainy, but Gardaí believe that the driver was a nineteen-year-old from Tallaght who had links to the Thompson gang. Ironically, he was well known to Gary Bryan. On 3 October 2006, Gardaí featured Gary Bryan’s murder on RTÉ’s Crimecall programme in the hope that members of the general public would provide them with information that might lead to a breakthrough. The programme led to a number of promising leads. The nineteen-year-old was known as a hothead who had previous convictions for violence against Gardaí and had once rammed a patrol car off the road. He was detained on 1 November 2006, and again refused to co-operate with Gardaí. He also refused to take part in an identity parade, so Gardaí had no choice but to let him go.

  On the same day that the nineteen-year-old was detained, Gardaí also swooped on Liam Brannigan and his girlfriend. Detective Sergeant Barry Butler arrested the twenty-two-year-old woman from Dublin 8, under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. She was questioned at Crumlin Garda Station and made no reply to the majority of questions put to her. She did say that she was with friends from 5.30 p.m. on the day that Gary Bryan was murdered, and went to a party in Drimnagh with them. The woman was arrested because she was the registered owner of the 01 D Fiat Punto that was seen by six witnesses at the murder scene leaving in convoy with the Subaru. The woman acknowledged that she owned the Punto, but said she hadn’t used it since June or July 2006. She was six months pregnant when she stopped driving the car. The car had previously been stopped by Gardaí on 8 February 2006. A man, who was involved in the Thompson gang, was driving. When he was stopped at Robert Street, he named Liam Brannigan’s girlfriend as its owner. Liam Brannigan was stopped at Francis Street, on 27 May 2006, driving the Punto, and he also told Gardaí that his girlfriend was the owner. Despite the fact that Gardaí had found the car abandoned in Templeogue after Gary Bryan’s murder, it was never reported lost or stolen by the woman. She was released without charge.

  Liam Brannigan was arrested at Crumlin Road and taken to Sundrive Road Garda Station. His house, at Bride Street in Dublin 8, was also searched, after Denis Donegan issued a warrant. During ten interview sessions, Brannigan refused to answer a single question or sign notes of interview or engage with Gardaí at all. He was detained because witnesses had seen his girlfriend’s car leaving the murder scene. The vehicle was insured with Quinn Direct, and the policy recorded its owner as being Liam Brannigan. The car had been recovered by Gardaí but had not been reported lost or stolen, which was very unusual. Brannigan’s fingerprint had been found on glass on the back passenger door side, which proved that he had used the car previously. He has also been stopped by Gardaí while driving the Punto on six separate occasions. Brannigan was released without charge.

  Gardaí had issued an arrest warrant for the twenty-three-year-old suspect gunman, but had not been able to track him down. Investigations had linked him to the Subaru. Four days before Gary Bryan’s murder, a man was shot in the head and shoulder during a drive-by attack on a house at Windmill Hill in Rathcoole, Co. Dublin. A BMW that was used as the getaway car was found burnt out in a remote field, not far from the shooting, soon after the attack took place. Because of the remoteness of the field, the culprits would have needed other transport to leave the area. Gardaí from Clondalkin called to petrol stations in the area, to see if anybody had noticed the BMW or if anything suspicious had occurred around the time of the shooting. They called to the Esso station on the Naas Road in Rathcoole, and were told that somebody had purchased a can of petrol on the evening of the 22 September, just hours before the shooting. They viewed copies of Esso’s CCTV footage, and it became apparent that the petrol was bought by the occupant of a silver Subaru Impreza car with the same registration that would be used in Gary Bryan’s murder four days later. Photographic stills were produced from the CCTV footage. Gardaí Kelly Dutton and Pat Fagan later identified the man buying the petrol as a twenty-three-year-old from Drimnagh. This twenty-three-year-old, who Gardaí believe actually carried out Gary Bryan’s murder, and the nineteen-year-old suspected of driving the Subaru away from the murder scene, had been stopped together in Waterford a week before the murder. The Garda who stopped the two gave a statement saying that the twenty-three-year-old had a tanned complexion, like he had been away on holidays. This tallied with Valerie White’s description that the man who shot her boyfriend was tanned. On 21 January 2007, the twenty-three-year-old was arrested in Co. Wicklow, after a high-speed chase in which Gardaí pursued him for over 32 km. He was a passenger in the car, which was being driven by the nineteen-year-old believed to be the getaway driver in the Bryan murder. He was taken to Crumlin Garda Station and was interviewed on seven occasions, but exercised his right to silence and said nothing. He was shown CCTV footage of him driving the Subaru into the Esso station in Rathcoole and buying a can of petrol, but didn’t show any reaction. It was the same story when he was told that that this Subaru had been used in Gary Bryan’s murder. The man initially agreed to take part in a formal identification parade but changed his mind. When he participated in an informal ID parade, a witness was unable to pick him out. He was subsequently released without charge.

  On 7 February 2007, Gardaí finally had enough evidence to arrest Graham Whelan. Detective Garda Eamonn Maloney detained him that evening. He was arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, for Possession of a Firearm with Intent to Endanger Life at Bunting Road on the day of Gary Bryan’s murder. He was taken to Sundrive Road Garda Station. He refused to provide a sample of blood or DNA, so a doctor was called, who took two buccal swabs from the prisoner. After having his photo and fingerprints taken, Whelan was allowed to sleep for the night. He was interviewed the following morning. He was interviewed a total of seven times throughout the day. The Graham Whelan who ‘spoke’ to Gardaí was very different to the Whelan that was portrayed in court when he was jailed in 2001 for his involvement in the Holiday Inn seizure. He might have been described as a naïve youngster then, but in February 2007, Whelan was a pro when it came to answering police questions. He didn’t. Throughout the course of the day he did not even answer one question from detectives. Any criminal who deals with Gardaí knows that the cardinal rule is to shut your mouth and say nothing. The reasoning is that if you do not give Gardaí the rope, then they will not be able to hang you with your own words. The people who are usually charged with murders on which the evidence is patchy are invariably the ones who engage with Gardaí. An effective way of making sure that you never see the inside of a courtroom is just to remain silent, as is your constitutional entitl
ement. Graham Whelan knew that Gardaí did not have a smoking gun against him, and that the evidence they did have was circumstantial. Gardaí used all the tricks in the book to try to get him to open up. They asked him about his friendship with Freddie Thompson. Whelan remained silent. They asked him about his girlfriend and whether or not she was aware of his involvement with the murder. Whelan remained silent. He was asked if he had an alibi for the day of the murder. Again, Whelan remained silent. Evidence of his mobile phone use in and around the murder scene was put to him. Again, he said nothing. Gardaí had no choice but to release Graham Whelan and send a file to the DPP, in the hope that they would come back with a direction to charge him.

  When detectives analysed the calls made by Whelan’s mobile phone on the day of the murder, they discovered that Whelan had been in touch with a man called Stephen Carlile on fourteen separate occasions prior to Bryan being shot dead. The Garda theory of the murder was that Graham Whelan saw Gary Bryan on Bunting Road, and made a phone call to Stephen Carlile, who then phoned the twenty-three- and nineteen-year-olds, who actually carried out the murder. Carlile was twenty-two at the time of the murder and was originally from Ballyfermot but was living in an apartment in Áras Na Cluaine in Clondalkin. Freddie Thompson had an apartment in the same block as Carlile, and he often spent time there with his girlfriend, Vicky Dempsey. Stephen Carlile was a petty junkie who had become caught up in the Thompson gang to earn money to feed his serious cocaine addiction. He owed tens of thousands of euro to the gang for drugs. He was used as a mule by the senior members, who knew that Carlile could not afford to repay his debts. In the weeks after the Bryan slaying, he started to appear on the investigating team’s radar. He was not known to Gardaí and had just three previous convictions for minor road traffic offences. However, on 24 October, Gardaí, acting on a tip-off, raided Carlile’s Clondalkin apartment and discovered over €11 million worth of heroin. At the time it was the biggest heroin seizure in the history of the state, and the drugs belonged to a number of serious criminals throughout the city, including Freddie Thompson, Graham Whelan and a Ballyfermot gang led by Karl Breen. It was probably no coincidence that Thompson was in such close proximity to the massive haul of drugs and could keep his eye on them, without ever having to touch them. The haul again showed how criminal gangs throughout Dublin co-operated with each other in importing massive drugs hauls, which were then split up and distributed in each gang’s separate and defined territories. Carlile was caught red-handed with the drugs and later pleaded guilty to possession for sale or supply of over €10.6 million worth of heroin, €839,000 of cannabis, and to unlawful possession of a machine pistol, 1,609 rounds of ammunition, four magazine pistols and two silencers. Carlile told Gardaí that he was paid €400 a week to mind the drugs and firearms. The €1,100 a month rented apartment was described in court as ‘effectively a drug warehouse in which heroin was prepared for sale’. Carlile was only a minor cog in the Thompson gang, but he knew the score and refused to co-operate with the investigation into the drugs, because he feared that he or his family would be murdered if he named names. Carlile was remanded in custody after the drugs haul and was later sentenced to twelve years in jail.