The Cold Case Files

by Barry Cummins

  Jimmy walked from the kitchen to the hallway, turned on the landing light and went upstairs. As he arrived at the top he saw his rifle case containing his rifle lying on its butt against a bedroom door. As a gun enthusiast Jimmy had a number of guns in the house. As well as his .22 rifle, he had a number of shotguns and other firearms. Jimmy was a member of Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil—the reserve Defence Force. He was an FCA Commandant, attached to McKee Barracks on Dublin’s northside.

  When he saw the rifle resting against the door-jamb Jimmy became anxious. The gun was normally stored away; it shouldn’t be out like that. Everything seemed strange in the house. Jimmy entered the master bedroom. He didn’t put on the light, thinking that perhaps Grace had been feeling unwell and had maybe gone to lie down. With the light from the landing Jimmy saw the outline of Grace lying on the bed. She was lying on her front. Jimmy walked to the near side of the bed and put his hand on Grace’s forehead. Jimmy’s hand immediately became moist and he instantly thought Grace had vomited. The bedclothes were moist too. Jimmy withdrew his hand and turned on the bedroom light. It was then he saw that it was blood on his hand.

  Jimmy ran from the house to raise the alarm. He didn’t know it at that stage but his wife was already dead. He ran to Anne Watchorne’s house across the road but Anne didn’t hear the door. He went to the next house, to Margaret Murphy. Margaret was a retired nurse, and the Murphys and Livingstones had known each other for 17 years. Margaret’s son answered the door to Jimmy and quickly got his mother. Jimmy ran back to his house and by the time Margaret ran after him he was already on the phone to the emergency services. The 999 call was logged at 5.58 p.m. Margaret went upstairs into the bedroom. She immediately saw Grace lying face down on the bed. Margaret saw that Grace’s hands were tied behind her back and her ankles were also tied with some type of black material. Jimmy was now in the bedroom too. He took a small scissors from his pocket and cut the binds which were holding Grace’s hands and feet together. There was a substantial amount of blood on Grace’s head and neck and in her hair. Margaret could see the blood had started to congeal and Grace did not appear to be still bleeding. Margaret wrapped a blanket around Grace in the hope of keeping her warm if she was still alive. Grace was still lying face down and neither Margaret or Jimmy could yet see her face. Margaret moved Grace’s head to clear her airways and it was then that she saw Grace’s mouth was also taped.

  Margaret tried to find Grace’s pulse but there was none. She advised Jimmy to call 999 again. It was a most surreal and horrific situation. Jimmy looked in presses and said that some of his guns were missing. He also mentioned that he believed he knew who had attacked Grace, he mentioned a person living along the border who was under investigation for tax fraud. But still Jimmy didn’t know Grace was dead. Fr John Keegan, a family friend, arrived within minutes. By now word was spreading through The Moorings that something awful had happened at the Livingstone home. An ambulance crew soon arrived too, followed by Dr Barry Moodley, who was Grace’s GP. Dr Moodley examined Grace where she lay on the bed and at 6.35 p.m. he pronounced her dead. Jimmy became very upset and began to shout and Margaret Murphy brought him out of the bedroom and eventually over to her own house across the road. He tried to contact Conor who was heading home from Dublin city, but he had just left work. Jimmy wanted to go and collect his son from the train station, but he was persuaded not to. Gardaí asked Jimmy to accompany them to the Garda station and make a full statement to assist their enquiries. Jimmy was still in shock but readily agreed; he wanted to do everything he could to help the investigation. Less than an hour after he had discovered Grace’s body Jimmy entered Malahide Garda station and he spent the next eight hours being interviewed by two detectives.

  When Margaret Murphy and Dr Moodley both attended to Grace in her bedroom they noticed her body was warm to touch. The bedroom itself was warm. Margaret had noticed that the blood from Grace’s horrific head wound had started to congeal. This would indicate Grace had been shot quite some time before the alarm was raised. When Dr Moodley examined Grace’s body at 6.35 p.m. he formed an opinion that she had died around two hours previously. State Pathologist Dr John Harbison attended the scene at 11.30 p.m. He was told Grace’s body was warm when found. He took a number of temperatures and formed an initial opinion that death may have occurred closer to 6 p.m. When Dr Harbison’s finding was put to Dr Moodley, the Livingstone GP said he was happy with his original view based on his experience.

  Not one person who entered the Livingstone bedroom once the alarm was raised got a smell of cordite. If a shotgun had recently been discharged in the bedroom there should have been a distinct smell, but there was none. Jimmy Livingstone didn’t get such a smell, neither did Margaret Murphy, Fr Keegan, Dr Moodley, the ambulance crew nor the two Gardaí who were the first officers at the scene.

  The Livingstone house was quickly sealed off. Later that evening the murder weapon was found. It was one of Jimmy Livingstone’s legally held guns—a hammerless DBBL shotgun. It was found abandoned under a hedge in the front garden of the Livingstone home. The outline of a most audacious and brutal crime was emerging. The murderer had entered the house sometime that afternoon, taken one of the shotguns that was in the house, murdered Grace in her bedroom, and then dropped the weapon in the front garden as he made his escape.

  In the hours after his wife’s body was found, Jimmy Livingstone remained at Malahide Garda station, giving a detailed statement, outlining how he had found his wife’s body. He remained in the station until the early hours of Tuesday morning and gave Gardaí details of a number of revenue investigations he was currently involved in. Jimmy believed the murder was most likely linked to the work he was doing.

  Conor Livingstone got the train home from Dublin to Malahide that night after a long day’s work in the amusement arcade in Dublin city. Conor didn’t have a mobile phone so there was no way anyone could make contact with him until he got home. He got off the train in Malahide and began walking home through the village, still unaware that his mother had been murdered. He was walking past Malahide Garda station en route to The Moorings when someone saw him and broke the news to him that his mother had been shot dead in their house. Tara was contacted in Paris and told the awful news. Just four months earlier Grace had visited her daughter in France and they had spent three weeks together, including going on a wonderful trip to Switzerland. Now Tara was being contacted by the Irish Embassy in Paris and told the news about her mother’s murder.

  Members of the Garda Technical Bureau carried out an extensive examination of the house. The tape which had been across Grace’s mouth and tied to her wrists and ankles was carefully examined. Every person who had been in the house that evening was fingerprinted. A Garda fingerprint expert examined the tape—he found Jimmy Livingstone’s print where he had cut the tape from his wife’s body. But there were other unidentified impressions on the tape which were not Jimmy’s. There was a finger mark on the non-sticky side and the impressions of the tips of fingers on the sticky side. The tape was labelled and put into storage. To this day those fingermarks have not been identified. They were checked against all known fingerprints the Gardaí have in their system, but no match was found. These prints remain a real clue.

  Jimmy Livingstone was doing his utmost to help Gardaí. He outlined all the firearms he had in the house, including two for which he didn’t have the required licences. One was from the First World War and the other was an air gun. He mentioned a number of suspected criminal or subversive figures who the Revenue Commissioners were investigating. One suspected senior member of the IRA was under investigation in relation to smuggling activities. Jimmy gave all the information he could about all the people who might possibly have a grievance with him.

  Some days after the murder of Grace Livingstone the IRA issued a statement denying responsibility. History has shown that such denials cannot always be taken at face value, but it is the considered view of many experienced investigators that the murder of
Grace Livingstone did not fit with an IRA operation. It just didn’t fit—what was the motive? Was it to stop Jimmy Livingstone carrying out a particular investigation? If so, why not claim responsibility, or why not expressly say this was the case? Why not target Jimmy directly? Or why not simply give a warning of some sort? Although the organisation didn’t always stick to its stated policy of not firing on Gardaí or the Defence Forces or other servants of the Irish State, the murder of Grace Livingstone does not seem to fit the bill of an IRA killing.

  Perhaps the murder was the work of an organised criminal gang. There were certainly ruthless gangs which were capable of such an attack. Over ten years previously, in January 1982, Dublin criminal Martin Cahill had obtained a bomb and placed it under the car of Dr Jim Donovan, head of the Forensic Science Laboratory. Dr Donovan survived the explosion but suffered long-term physical injuries. On another occasion Cahill shot a Social Welfare official in both legs when his dole was stopped. Such violent actions showed that Dublin-based gangs were prepared to target civil servants who were simply doing their jobs. It was entirely possible that Jimmy Livingstone’s work had incurred the wrath of some psychopath whose criminal wealth was being examined. But if this was the case, the basic question remains—why was Jimmy’s wife targeted, why was he not targeted himself?

  Another theory is that the murder was perhaps not sanctioned by a subversive group or criminal gang, but was perhaps carried out by someone who was trying to join such a group, and who wanted to prove they were capable of clinical murder. There is nothing to prove this, it is simply one of the many theories to try and explain what type of character might have committed such a callous murder.

  Perhaps the most likely scenario, however, is that it was a psychopathic young man acting on his own initiative who carried out the murder. This begs the question whether he knew his victim, or was Grace simply the unfortunate victim of a random burglar. There was no sign of a break-in, but perhaps Grace answered the front door to someone who initially looked innocent. Perhaps Grace was punched and quickly disorientated, then forced upstairs and bound and gagged. Perhaps the burglar then found the guns in the house, and for some reason decided to shoot Grace as she lay face down on her bed. Her clothing had not been disturbed so sexual assault was not a motive for the murder. Was the killer someone who was high on drugs, who forced his way into the house with perhaps simply theft on his mind, but whose plan changed when he saw the weapons?

  It would appear the killer had brought a roll of black tape with him. The tape was unusually large, it was about two inches wide. The origin of the tape, the place it was manufactured, was never identified. But what type of person carries black tape with them? Did they carry it with the specific intention of using it to tie someone up?

  Maybe the killer knew that there were weapons in the Livingstone house. Maybe he knew his victim, maybe he was invited into the house, or maybe he was a stranger who for some reason didn’t cause Grace any suspicion when he called to the front door before he suddenly struck out. There are so many theories, but in the absence of fact, theories are all we have ...

  The day after the murder the landscape gardener who was working across the road returned to work at The Moorings. He had seen on the previous night’s news that there had been a murder in the cul-de-sac where he had been working. As he pulled into the estate he saw that the house where he had seen the man standing in the porch the previous afternoon was the house which was now sealed off. He immediately spoke to a Garda and gave a description of the man he had seen. He told of seeing the young man picking up a large pot plant in the porch. The gardener pointed out a large leafy plant on the left-hand side of the door. That looked like the plant the unidentified young man had touched. The witness was later asked if it might have been Grace he had seen in the porch, but the gardener was adamant it was a young man. Four teenage girls also gave statements about a young man they had seen near The Moorings. He wasn’t a local, they didn’t recognise him.

  Four of Grace’s neighbours gave statements outlining how they all, independently of each other, heard a loud sound at around 4.30 p.m. on the day of the murder. One woman likened the sound to what you might hear if someone struck an empty oil tank. One of the women had experience of guns where she had grown up in the countryside and she said she knew the sound of a firearm when she heard it. She believed the sound she heard at 4.30 p.m. on the day of the murder was a gunshot.

  The gardener who had seen the unidentified youth at 4.40 p.m. on the day of the murder had told Gardaí that he didn’t see any car in the driveway of the Livingstone home. This raised the possibility that Grace had gone out for a drive and later come home not knowing there was an intruder in the house. Had someone been watching Grace’s movements that afternoon and waited until she had gone out of the house before breaking in? But there was no sign of a break-in, no damage to the front or back door. For every theory it seemed there was something to knock it back. What was without doubt was that Grace’s car was parked in the driveway as normal by the time Jimmy came home that evening.

  As investigations continued it was established that a young man had called to a number of houses close to The Moorings cul-de-sac that afternoon and represented himself as a collector for a recognised charity. When Gardaí checked with that charity they discovered it did not have any registered collectors in the Malahide area on 7 December 1992.

  As the investigation continued, Gardaí sent a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to the two unlicensed firearms which Jimmy Livingstone had at his home. In the hours and days after Grace’s murder, Jimmy had volunteered all the information he had about the guns he kept. To this day he is still very upset about his arrest under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act in March of 1993. He was later summonsed to appear at Swords District Court and in November 1993, approaching the anniversary of his wife’s murder, he was fined £300. Asked by journalists outside the court if he was surprised he had been prosecuted, Jimmy thought about his wife’s unsolved murder and solemnly said he hoped the authorities “now had other things to do”.

  It was in late 1993 that a Deputy Garda Commissioner asked a new team of Gardaí to carry out a cold-case review of the unsolved murder of Grace Livingstone. Detective Superintendent Tom Connolly and Detective Sergeant Todd O’Loughlin from the Crime Branch at Garda Headquarters were despatched to Malahide to carry out a root-and-branch review of the case. Both men were much experienced and well-respected officers. Tom Connolly had been part of the team which caught English serial killers John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans in the late 1970s. Shaw and Evans had abducted and murdered women in Co. Wicklow and in Co. Mayo and had planned to commit further murders but were caught by detectives before they could kill again. Connolly had also helped to solve the murders of three Irish soldiers by a fellow soldier in the Lebanon in 1983. Todd O’Loughlin had worked on many serious crime investigations, and would in time be one of the main detectives to investigate the murder in 1996 of journalist Veronica Guerin.

  The two detectives read the complete case file, including witness statements. The cold-case review looked at every one of the original reasons that Jimmy Livingstone was initially considered a suspect, and the cold-case team concluded none of the reasons were credible. Central to the cold-case investigation was trying to ascertain the time of Grace’s murder. The sound heard by four women in their respective homes in The Moorings at 4.30 p.m. needed to be further investigated. Det. Supt Connolly arranged for two members from the Ballistics section of the Garda Technical Bureau to carry out a test at the Livingstone home. Jimmy Livingstone invited the officers into the house and gave them every assistance. The cold-case team arranged for the four women to be in their homes and in the exact same locations as they had been on the day of the murder. The Gardaí from the Ballistics section went to the bedroom where the murder had occurred and set up a large chest stuffed with cotton wool to use as a ‘gunshot chamber’ to safely fire the gun. The Garda then fired a shot
gun into the chest. This test was to see if the four women could hear the sound—was it similar to what they had heard on the day of the murder. The test was carried out at 4.30 p.m. on a particular day, but the weather conditions were different to what they had been on the day of the murder. A near gale was blowing on the day of the test, and none of the women heard the gunshot. The Gardaí arranged for a second test to be carried out on another day when weather conditions were similar to what they had been like on 7 December 1992. A shotgun was again fired in the bedroom where Grace had been murdered. Three of the women heard the shot this time. The fourth woman wasn’t available, but a Garda stood at her home and he too heard the shot. Crucially, the second investigation team asked the women if the sound was similar to what they heard on the day of the murder. It was the exact same sound, they said. As one woman described it, it was like someone banging an empty oil drum.

  A short time after the gun was test-fired, Det. Supt Connolly asked retired nurse Margaret Murphy to enter the bedroom and she said she could get a strong smell which she did not get on the evening Grace’s body was found. The smell was evident in the hall once you entered the house. A Garda who had attended the crime scene on 7 December 1992 also entered the bedroom and he too said there was a distinct smell of a discharged firearm which was not there when he attended the original scene. The Garda Ballistics officer who fired the test-shot gave his clothing for testing and it was found to have gunshot residue.

  This test firing of the shotgun was not absolute proof in itself. You cannot precisely replicate an original situation, and when people are listening out for a sound perhaps they are more likely to hear it. But the fact that the sound the women heard during the test firing was the same as the sound they heard at around 4.30 p.m. on the day of the murder was hugely significant. When you take into account the following pieces of information—an unidentified man had been seen at the Livingstone front door at around 4.40 p.m. on the day of the murder; an unidentified youth was also seen in The Moorings at around 4.30 p.m.; the blood from Grace’s wound was congealed by 6 p.m. indicating she had been shot earlier that afternoon; Dr Moodley’s belief that Grace had died around two hours before he examined her body at 6.35 p.m.—it all leads to the conclusion that the murder happened sometime around 4.30 p.m. on 7 December 1992. At that time Jimmy Livingstone was still working in his office in Nassau Street.