The Irish Scissor Sisters

by Mick McCaffrey

  The garda sub-aqua team arrived at around 8.30 a.m. to carry out the unenviable task of removing the limbs from the canal waters. Sergeant John Bruton from Athlone Garda Station headed the team of four. Sergeant Bruton was acting as the dive supervisor while Garda Eamon Bracken, who was also stationed in Athlone, set up and tested the equipment that would be used to film the dive. The two gardaí whose job it was to recover the limbs – Gardaí Eoin Ferriter and Brian Breathnach – were both from Santry Garda Station and were experienced divers.

  Sergeant Bruton was briefed by Detective Sergeant Mick Macken from the Technical Bureau, who was acting as the crime scene manager. Superintendent John Leahy also talked the dive expert through what had happened the previous day, so he could prepare his two divers for the job ahead.

  Gardaí Ferriter and Breathnach put on their diving gear while Garda Eamon Bracken was finishing setting up the Colourwatch, a state-of-the-art underwater video system. Before they even got started, the two divers, Ferriter and Breathnach, removed the torso that was floating in water close to a wooden jetty, 150 feet past the bridge in the direction of Croke Park. Garda Brian Breathnach lifted up the torso and scooped it into a body bag held open by his colleague. Both men could clearly see that the victim had suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest area. The head and both arms had been removed and the torso hacked off across the midriff. They got the torso out of the water using a stretcher and placed it on the wooden jetty, where it was handed over to Detective Garda Geraldine Doherty.

  The dive then got under way at 9.55 a.m. when both divers entered the freezing water. Garda Breathnach held the Colourwatch camera, which relayed video images that were recorded and watched on the surface by Garda Bracken. This underwater video survey took about forty-five minutes and seven body parts were located, at a depth of about 1.8 metres, under the bridge, close to the canal wall.

  A part of a lower leg was the first limb recovered, followed by a thigh, a full leg, an arm and the midriff, followed by a second arm and finally, another section of thigh. Each limb was placed in a separate plastic evidence bag under the water before being handed over on the surface to Sergeant Bruton, who passed each bag on to the Technical Bureau. The video footage clearly showed that the pelvis was wrapped in a green and white Umbro football jersey.

  Senior gardaí supervised this important dive and Sgt John Bruton offered instructions from time to time, making sure that the video footage would be of sufficient quality to be used in any later court case. The underwater search team continued to scour the canal in search of other body parts, from the lock gates under Ballybough Bridge up as far as Croke Park, a few hundred feet away. It soon became clear that the victim’s limbs had all been dumped in the one spot and that the torso was the only body part that had floated away from where it had been dumped.

  At 11.10 a.m. both gardaí were called out of the water and got dried off before going back to their stations. Garda Bracken labelled the videotapes of the morning’s work and handed them over to Det Sgt Colm Fox. Over the next few days other searches of the canal took place, including one from Crossguns Bridge back to Ballybough, but nothing more was found.

  After the divers had left the scene, the work of the Garda Technical Bureau was only just starting. Members of this elite section, based at Garda Headquarters in the Phoenix Park, are trained to work methodically and routinely spend hours trawling crime scenes. As well as gathering chewing gum and old cigarette butts from under the bridge, Detective Garda Doherty also took samples of canal water and drained water from the recently recovered torso. She took swabs from bloodstains found close to where the body parts were recovered under the bridge. Items of clothing removed by the divers, including a pair of jeans and a tracksuit top, also had to be bagged up and sent to the lab for testing.

  Stafford’s Funeral Directors, who are based at nearby North Strand Road, were contacted by the City Coroner’s office and agreed to remove the victim’s body to the City Mortuary in Marino. Nevin Stafford arrived at Ballybough around midday and was directed to the two body bags that contained the remains. He loaded them onto a stretcher and placed them in an ambulance. He was accompanied to Marino by Garda Cliona Beirne. Karl Lyons, the Mortuary Technician, met him and took delivery of the body bags.

  Later that afternoon, Malachy Fallon from Stafford’s picked up the body bags and brought them to Beaumont Hospital. The limbs were X-rayed before being brought back to the morgue for the post-mortem.

  Dr Michael Curtis, the Deputy State Pathologist, carried out a post-mortem examination at around 7 p.m. that evening. He had been at the scene at 9 a.m. that morning when his preliminary examination revealed that the victim had most likely died from stab wounds.

  Dr Curtis determined that the body parts found in the canal were probably those of a healthy black male, aged between twenty and thirty years old. It had originally been thought that the remains were those of a white man because they’d been in the water so long that most of the skin had separated from the limbs. The body had been contaminated with silt and fresh-water prawns and he thought that it had probably been in the water for in excess of a week. When he looked beneath the white underpants it was clear that the man’s penis had been amputated, along with the anterior part of the skin of the scrotum. The testicles were still present, as was the victim’s pubic hair.

  When the body parts were laid out on the mortuary table their combined length measured 5 ft 4", which meant that allowing for the head, the body would have probably been in the region of 6 ft. The victim appeared to be of an athletic and muscular build.

  According to the post-mortem, ‘There was considerable water-logging of the skin of the wrists, hands and fingers, producing a so-called washerwoman appearance.’ The hand was found in a clenched position with the fingernails short and ragged. There were no defensive wounds to the hands or fingers and the way the bones of the body were fragmented indicated that they had probably been cut by a sharp instrument. Some of the fracturing was not very clean though, which suggested that a blunter instrument had also been used.

  The victim had been stabbed a total of twenty-two times, with eighteen of these wounds being made to the middle of the chest, between the nipples and neck. Many of these wounds measured 3.5 cm, such was the ferocity of the assault. There were two injuries to the lower chest. The stomach had suffered four wounds to its front and was empty when examined. There was also trauma to the large intestine and colon. There was a 22 cm wound on the victim’s back which had penetrated deep into the flesh, while another wound to the shoulder blades was also detected, as was a stab wound to the lower left-side of the back.

  The liver appeared pale and there was a superficial V-shaped wound on it, as well as a 2 cm long cut to its posterior. The left kidney bore a small amount of surface damage, which had most likely been caused during the dismemberment. The bladder had been pierced a number of times and was empty. There was significant damage to three ribs, caused by the knife cutting through the stomach. The victim’s stomach contained traces of blood and blood clot. Two attempts had also been made to penetrate the heart but these stab wounds only caused damage to the heart muscle, the organ itself was not penetrated. The dead man’s lungs had been penetrated five times. All of the victim’s vital organs were healthy and Dr Curtis believed that the dead man had a history of good health and had not been in any way sick.

  Alcohol was detected in the blood but the level could not be quantified. Drugs were not initially detected.

  Dr Curtis’s report concluded: ‘This man’s body had been dismembered. Dismemberment would have occurred after he had succumbed to multiple penetrating wounds. In the course of the dismemberment, the soft tissues had been cut relatively cleanly with a sharp knife or similar implement, while the bones had been severed relatively clumsily by repeated chopping actions from an instrument or instruments such as an axe or a cleaver. The head and neck had not been recovered at the time of post-mortem examination. The penis had been amputated and was not
recovered.’

  He determined that the victim had died as a result of ‘penetrating wounds to the trunk’.

  Detective Garda Geraldine Doherty was present while the examination took place and was in charge of handling samples taken from the remains. Samples of the victim’s pubic hair, nail swabs and anal swabs were taken. Bone marrow, muscle tissue samples, as well as blood and toxicology samples, were also gathered and handed over to Dr Hillary Clarke of the Forensic Science Laboratory in Dublin. Dr Clarke was also responsible for testing the soccer jersey, vest, underpants, socks and tea towel that were found with the remains.

  Mr Neil O’Brien, a biochemist at the Toxicology Department in Beaumont Hospital, took delivery of the toxicology samples. Detective Garda Glenn Ryan of the Bureau’s fingerprint section took a set of palm and fingerprints from the body. They would be checked against the National and Asylum Fingerprint Databases to see if the victim had applied for asylum as a refugee. Europol, Interpol and international immigration authorities’ records would also be checked.

  While Dr Curtis was determining the cause of death, a massive garda inquiry aimed at identifying the remains swung into action. Hundreds of residents in the Summerhill and Ballybough areas were canvassed and each filled out a questionnaire with the help of gardaí. The results were collated at the incident room in Fitzgibbon Street.

  Gardaí realised that the help of the media would also play a key element in identifying the murder victim. The media took an immediate interest in the grizzly case and in the few weeks following the discovery scarcely a day went by when it wasn’t mentioned in the national press. The day after the remains were found, a press conference was held at Fitzgibbon Street and was attended by dozens of newspaper, TV and radio reporters. Detective Inspector Christy Mangan and Superintendent John Leahy put the items of clothing that were found with the remains on display. Gardaí especially focused on publicising the white long-sleeved Ireland-away jersey because it was so distinctive.

  There was also a huge interest in the case among members of the public, and Superintendent John Leahy made an appearance on RTÉ’s Crimecall, appealing for public help in the case. Little did he realise that Linda Mulhall was watching the programme. It was around this time that she moved the head from its original resting place so the guards would never find it. Officers made special pleas to landlords to check their accommodation for missing tenants and many did come forward offering potential names. Crimestoppers, an anti-crime agency funded by the Department of Justice and working in co-operation with An Garda Síochána, put up a reward of €10,000 for anyone who could help identify the body. Gardaí assured members of the public that all information they received would be treated in the strictest of confidence.

  Members of the African community were also heavily canvassed for information, with special pleas being issued to immigrant media outlets, such as the Metro Éireann newspaper. These publications ran articles on the discovery of the body parts and also printed posters in a number of different languages, featuring the distinctive soccer jersey found with the victim. Gardaí also made church appeals and spoke with the pastors of all the African Churches in the Greater Dublin Area. African community leaders were later praised for the co-operation they gave in trying to identify the remains. It would be an African man who read a newspaper article about the body, who would give gardaí their first breakthrough.

  Much of the newspaper reporting focused on the possibility that the victim had been murdered as part of a ritual sacrifice, and gardaí did give this theory real consideration in the absence of anyone coming forward to identify the body. Investigators were conscious that members of the African community were flocking to Dublin and little was understood about their religious beliefs or traditions. Ritual sacrifices are relatively common in parts of West and Southern Africa where it is thought that an increase in wealth or brainpower must come at the expense of others. The most powerful way of acquiring another person’s wealth or intellect is to consume medicine made from their body parts and this belief has existed for centuries. Certain parts of the body are believed to offer different benefits. Testicles are thought to bring virility, fat from the breast or abdomen brings luck, while a tongue will smooth the path to a girl’s heart. A businessman might sacrifice a hand in order to attract more customers. The organs have to be removed while the victim is still alive and their screams enhance the power of the medicine. Human sacrifice is thought to please the gods and gives special powers to those conducting the ceremony.

  On the face of it, the discovery of a dismembered corpse with the head and penis missing would set the alarm bells ringing in any police force. But many detectives privately felt sceptical that they were dealing with black magic, or muti as it is known. Only two ritual murders have taken place in Britain over the last forty years and none have been recorded in Ireland. The lack of a head and penis were seen as a possible attempt by the murderers to throw investigators off the scent and to divert time and resources away from discovering the real motive for the crime.

  Despite these reservations, gardaí examined similarities between the Ballybough case and a 2001 case involving the discovery of a body floating in the River Thames in London. An unidentified torso of an African boy, who was named ‘Adam’ by British police, was found in the river. His head and limbs were severed and the calabar bean (a toxic plant found in West Africa), pellets and gold particles, were found in the child’s gut.

  Detectives also spoke to an Irish priest who had spent several decades on the Missions in Nigeria. His opinion was that the canal murder bore remarkable similarities to cases he had encountered in Africa. Gardaí then made official contact with Detective Superintendent Gerard Labuschagne of the South African Police Service’s Investigative Psychology Unit (IPU) based in Pretoria. Dr Labuschagne has a doctorate in clinical psychology and has studied serial killers since 1994. He is a renowned international expert on muti killings and has had plenty of practice dealing with cases involving black magic. He estimates that there are between fifteen and three hundred ritual killings in South Africa each year. Most deaths go unreported or are treated as ordinary murders. As well as black magic, his unit also investigates mass-murders, baby-rapists, extortionists and all the unusual crimes that baffle detectives. Dr Labuschagne’s three-person unit has been in existence for over ten years and has been responsible for putting some of South Africa’s most dangerous criminals behind bars. Its main job is to profile the offenders. The unit conducts research into psychologically motivated crimes and has the largest database of serial murderers in the world. The South African Police Service (SAPS) has a 100 per cent success record in solving serial murder investigations in which Dr Labuschagne’s team has been involved. The SAPS also catches serial murderers faster than any other police force in the world.

  The Detective Superintendent is in regular demand throughout the world and has assisted agencies such as Scotland Yard, the Finish National Bureau of Investigation, the Royal Swazi Police and the Netherlands National Police Agency. During his brief contact with gardaí he told them that it is usually quite easy to distinguish a muti murder because body parts are removed in a functional manner, while the victim is still alive. This is in contrast to serial murderers, who take a sick pleasure in torturing and mutilating their victims. It is far more difficult to track down the people behind muti killings because the culture of silence around those who believe in and practice black magic is so strong. He confirmed that the removal of the genitals is a strong characteristic of a muti murder, because they are seen as a source of good luck. In many ways the body in the canal case did not really seem to fit the muti criteria but Dr Labuschagne nevertheless agreed to assist detectives in their investigation. Arrangements were being made to fly Detective Sergeant Gerry McDonnell to South Africa to interview him, when the identity of the corpse was discovered.

  Another theory scrutinised was that the dismembered body could have been that of Paiche Onyemaechi’s husband. Her headless remains we
re found at the side of a riverbank in Kilkenny City, in July 2004. Chika Onyemaechi has not been seen since his wife’s disappearance. Paiche was the daughter of the Malawian Chief Justice and had lived with her thirty-three-year-old husband and two children in Waterford before they separated. The remains loosely fitted the description of Chika Onyemaechi, and gardaí were open to the possibility that he was murdered by associates of his dead wife, but they quickly ruled out any link in the cases. Nobody has ever been charged with Paiche’s brutal murder.

  In the early part of the new millennium hundreds of asylum-seekers managed to sneak into Ireland, taking advantage of our lax immigration laws. Most of these refugees lived within their own communities and never came to the attention of the authorities. They were effectively invisible. The number of African men in their twenties and thirties who had come to Ireland and then vanished was so vast that gardaí were offered sixty-two names of possible victims matching the description of the body found in the canal. All these individuals’ families and friends had to be interviewed and it was a time-consuming exercise that involved a massive amount of garda manpower. Specialist detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI), whose job it was to investigate serious crime, were also drafted in to help the dozens of gardaí from Fitzgibbon Street, Mountjoy and Store Street stations who were involved in the case. Most of the names on this list were not even in the country but every lead had to be checked and every line of inquiry ruled out.

  CCTV footage also proved to be very important. Hundreds of tapes, containing thousands of hours of footage were handed over by local businesses around the north innercity. Garda CCTV footage and traffic cameras also had to be scrutinised in fine detail. A special unit with around twenty video monitors was set up and gardaí viewed the footage around the clock. Charlotte and Linda Mulhall would later be identified on a number of traffic and security cameras around Ballybough, and Farah Noor’s last hours were filmed by a camera on O’Connell Street.