The Cold Case Files

by Barry Cummins

  Another cold-case trial linked to the Troubles took place in 2008 when a former IRA leader stood trial for kidnapping supermarket boss Don Tidey a quarter of a century before. Mr Tidey had been abducted on 24 November 1983 by an armed IRA gang in Dublin and held hostage at Derrada Wood in Co. Leitrim for 23 days. An Irish soldier, Private Patrick Kelly, and a recruit Garda, Gary Sheehan, were shot dead during the operation which led to Don Tidey’s release. A fingerprint was discovered on a milk carton found at the scene and it was later alleged at the 2008 trial that the fingerprint was that of the accused. The milk carton itself had since been lost but the court ruled that it was entitled to consider the fingerprint evidence. However, the three judges of the Special Criminal Court ruled that evidence of an incriminating statement alleged to have been made by the accused was inadmissible, and on the tenth day of the trial, when the State said it had no further evidence to offer, the man was acquitted. No-one has ever been charged specifically in relation to the murders of Private Patrick Kelly and Recruit Garda Gary Sheehan.

  Over 120 people lost their lives in the Republic of Ireland as a result of the Troubles and most of those cases remain unsolved. A small number of those deaths did not involve a third party—the first death of the Troubles in the Republic, for example, was in October 1969 when a loyalist was blown up by his own bomb near Ballyshannon in Co. Donegal. However, the vast majority of the deaths were of innocent people who were blown up or shot dead as the violence in Northern Ireland spread south of the border. While the figure of 120 or so deaths pales in comparison to the more than 3,400 lives lost in Northern Ireland during the same period, there is one major difference between how Troubles-related killings are being dealt with on either side of the border. In Northern Ireland there is a specific team of investigators—the Historical Inquiries Team—whose one and only purpose is to investigate all the unsolved Troubles-related deaths which occurred in Cos. Derry, Tyrone, Armagh, Antrim, Down and Fermanagh. In the Republic there has been no such initiative. In the wake of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, there was no special team set up in the Republic to match the work of the Historical Inquiries Team. The task of investigating all such murders has now fallen to the Garda Cold Case Unit.

  Of the 120 or so deaths in the Republic, over 80 of them occurred in the 1970s. The unsolved deaths from the 70s included the murders of three Gardaí and two members of the RUC. In April 1970 Garda Dick Fallon became the first member of An Garda Síochána to lose his life as a result of the Troubles. Garda Fallon was unarmed when he was shot dead in Dublin by a group of bank robbers who were members of the Republican group Saor Éire. Just over two years later Garda Inspector Sam Donegan became the second Garda to lose his life in the Troubles. He was fatally injured by a bomb which had been left on the Cavan-Fermanagh border. Inspector Donegan was one of a team of Gardaí carrying out searches on roads near Newtownbutler when the device exploded. The IRA was blamed for the murder and was also believed responsible for the murder of the third Garda to die in the Troubles. In October 1976 Garda Michael Clerkin was one of a number of officers to respond to an anonymous phone call reporting suspicious activity at a deserted cottage near Port Laoise. As officers examined the cottage a booby-trap bomb exploded and Michael Clerkin was killed and a number of other Gardaí were seriously injured. Similar to the deaths of Garda Dick Fallon and Inspector Sam Donegan, the authorities vowed to bring the killers to justice, but no-one was ever convicted in any of these murders.

  Two RUC officers were also killed in the Republic in the 1970s. Detective-Constable John Doherty, who was attached to Omagh station, was shot dead by IRA gunmen as he was visiting his mother near Lifford in Co. Donegal in October 1973. The detective was turning his car in a narrow laneway near the house when the ambush occurred. And in December 1979, RUC reservist Stanley Hazelton was shot dead by the IRA near the village of Glaslough in Co. Monaghan. He was ambushed and murdered as he crossed the border two days before Christmas to collect the family’s turkey. Just like the murders of three Gardaí killed in the line of duty in the 1970s, these two murders of off-duty RUC officers would never be solved.

  On Friday 17 May 1974, loyalist car-bombs exploded in Dublin and Monaghan claiming 34 lives. Among those murdered were a young couple and their two girls, aged 17 months and 5 months. A young woman and her unborn baby were also among the victims. Most of the 34 people died instantly, but one man lived for two months in hospital before dying from his injuries. As with so many other atrocities, the Irish Government promised that the killers would be pursued, but within three months the Garda investigation had effectively wound down and no-one was ever brought to justice. It seems there was a feeling that the killers were back over the border and could not be apprehended. Co-operation between Gardaí and the RUC at the time would seem to have been minimal. A recent Government-initiated report found that some Garda documentation from the original investigation had gone missing, and it was impossible to tell what other documentation there might have been because of the antiquated Garda filing systems in place in the 1970s. The Justice for the Forgotten group, which represents a number of the bereaved families, continues to seek answers from the British authorities about what they know of those responsible for the atrocities.

  And there are so many other unsolved murders from the early years of the Troubles where the killers may still be alive, or where answers might still be obtained if the cases were actively pursued. In December 1972, bus driver George Bradshaw and bus conductor Thomas Duffy were killed when a loyalist bomb exploded just off Dublin’s O’Connell Street. The following February another bus driver, Thomas Douglas, was also killed by a loyalist car-bomb, which was again left very close to O’Connell Street. The vehicle had earlier been stolen in Belfast. A loyalist bomb also claimed the lives of two young teenagers in December 1972. Fourteen-year-old Geraldine O’Reilly and 16-year-old Patrick Stanley were killed when a car-bomb exploded outside the post office in Belturbet, Co. Cavan. The early hours of 1973 also brought more random violence and death to the Republic, when Briege Porter and her fiancé Oliver Boyce were murdered by loyalists in Co. Donegal. Briege and Oliver were returning home from a New Year’s Eve party when they were attacked near Burnfoot, about four miles from the border.

  The random murders continued throughout the 1970s and a common theme would be that most of the deaths would remain unsolved. In June 1975 Christopher Phelan was found stabbed to death close to the railway line in his hometown of Sallins in Co. Kildare. It appeared that the 48-year-old had struggled with his attackers before he was murdered. Gardaí believe that Christopher may have disturbed loyalist terrorists, who were attempting to blow up a train carrying members of the Republican movement who were travelling to Bodenstown Cemetery. And in November of that same year, 38-year-old John Hayes was working a shift at Dublin Airport when a loyalist bomb exploded in the arrivals terminal. John was killed instantly and nine others were injured. The murder of John Hayes is the only murder to have occurred within Dublin Airport and to this day it remains unsolved.

  The IRA were also killing people with explosives and bullets in the Republic during the 1970s. In July 1976 the newly arrived British Ambassador Christopher Ewart-Biggs, and a civil servant, Judith Cook, were both killed in an IRA ambush in Sandyford in south Dublin. The two victims died when a landmine exploded underneath the Ambassador’s armour-plated car. The car had just left the Ambassador’s residence 200 yards away. The bomb had been triggered by a command wire and three men were seen driving away from the scene, but no-one was ever brought to justice. Just over three years later, in Co. Sligo, the IRA planted a bomb on a boat owned by Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was a cousin of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth. The craft was off the coast of Mullaghmore when the 50lbs of explosives detonated. Seventy-nine-year-old Lord Mountbatten was one of four people killed. His 14-year-old grandson Nicholas Knatchbull died too, as did 83-year-old Lady Doreen Brabourne, who was the mother-in-law of Lord Mountbatten’s daughter. Fifteen-year-old Paul Maxw
ell was also killed in the explosion. Paul was from Co. Fermanagh and had taken a summer job as a boatman for Lord Mountbatten in Sligo. One IRA man was later jailed for life for the murders. The other members of the gang were never brought to justice.

  The full extent of the killings carried out in the Republic of Ireland by the IRA has only become apparent in recent years. It is only in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998, that we now know that the IRA abducted a number of people in Northern Ireland and in Dublin, killed them and then secretly buried their bodies. Mother-of-ten Jean McConville disappeared in Belfast in 1972—her body was found by chance buried at a beach in Co. Louth in 2003. She had been shot in the head by the IRA and then her body was hidden. Nineteen-seventy-two was also the year that Kevin McKee, Seamus Wright and Joe Lynskey all vanished from Belfast. Their bodies have not yet been found but it’s believed Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright are buried in Co. Meath. Columba McVeigh was abducted in Dublin and killed in 1975 and his body is believed to be buried in Co. Monaghan. Brian McKinney and John McClory were taken from Belfast in 1978 and shot dead. Their bodies were found in Co. Monaghan in 1999. Brendan Megraw was also taken by the IRA in Belfast in 1978; his body has still not been found but it’s believed he was secretly buried in Co. Meath. Danny McIlhone was abducted from Dublin in 1981 and shot dead in Co. Wicklow. His body was found in 2008 after fresh information was given to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains. The Commission has also recently found the bodies of Peter Wilson, Gerard Evans and Charlie Armstrong. Peter’s body was found buried in Co. Antrim—he was last seen in Belfast in 1973. Gerard Evans’s body was found in Co. Louth in 2010—he was last seen in Castleblayney in 1979. Charlie Armstrong’s body was found buried in 2010 in Co. Monaghan—he was last seen in Co. Armagh in 1981. The IRA returned the body of Éamon Molloy in 1999 when it came clean about some of the abductions and murders it had committed. Éamon Molloy had last been seen in Belfast in 1975. And it has long been known that the IRA hid the body of SAS Captain Robert Nairac after he was shot dead in Co. Louth in 1977. His is one of six bodies which the IRA have so far failed to give back to families.

  What is particularly striking about the number of cases of people abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in the 1970s and early 80s is that most of the bodies are believed to be buried in the Republic of Ireland. These secret burials were going on under the noses of Irish authorities in the period from 1972 until 1981. One ray of hope that has emerged in recent years is that members of the IRA will return the bodies of their other victims. It is clear that former members of the IRA have been speaking directly with the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains, pointing out areas of land which should be searched. The attraction in speaking with the Commission is that there is no question of any information ever being used for prosecuting anyone—the information is only used for prioritising search areas.

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  Back at the offices of the Serious Crime Review Team, Detective Superintendent Christy Mangan says that he and his team are reviewing all unsolved murders which have occurred since 1980 and that includes murders linked to the Troubles.

  Those cases are factored into our work, and we have had contact with families who have lost someone as a result of terrorist-related activity. We are carrying out preliminary reviews of some of those cases. If there is someone coming forward with new information, or if there are new forensic opportunities we will certainly look at cases. We are looking primarily at all murders which have occurred since 1980, that year was chosen because you have to start somewhere, but if there is any reason, we will look at cases further back and we have been looking at some cases from the 1970s.

  The Cold Case Unit is made up of a dozen detectives who all have experience in major criminal investigations. Mangan himself was a Detective Inspector on the northside of Dublin and was one of the Gardaí to lead the investigation into the discovery of a dismembered body which was found in Dublin’s Royal Canal in 2005. The body was later identified as that of a Kenyan man, Farah Swaleh Noor. Two Dublin sisters were later convicted of the killing and their mother also served a sentence for helping to conceal the crime. Prior to being one of the senior detectives in Dublin, Mangan served with the Garda National Drugs Unit and the Central Detective Unit.

  The structure of the Cold Case Unit saw Christy Mangan as the Detective Superintendent, with one Detective Inspector, two Detective Sergeants and four Detective Gardaí. When the Unit was launched Brendan Burke was appointed as the Detective Inspector. He had previously served in the National Surveillance Unit, the Drug Unit, and the Central Detective Unit. Alan Bailey and Michael Buckley were appointed as the two Sergeants. Bailey had been an Incident Room Co-ordinator in the investigation of serious crime since the mid-80s. He had previously worked at Dublin’s Bridewell station, and he had also been one of the detectives on Operation Trace, which had investigated the disappearances of women in Leinster in the 1990s. Michael Buckley had also been involved in a number of serious crime investigations and had served in Drogheda, Ballymun and Santry. The four Detective Gardaí assigned to the newly formed Unit were David O’Brien, Annelisa Hannigan, Maurice Downey and Padraig Hanly. O’Brien had been an Incident Room Co-ordinator in the investigation of serious crime in the North Central Dublin area and had been in the Special Detective Unit; Hannigan had worked with the Paedophile Investigation Unit at the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and had been involved in a number of major investigations; Downey had been an Incident Room Co-ordinator in west Dublin and had also worked in the Central Detective Unit and with the Investigation Unit of the Immigration Bureau; and Hanly had been an Incident Room Co-ordinator in the Dublin Metropolitan Region Northern Division and again had been involved in many serious crime investigations. When Detective Inspector Burke retired from the force, Detective Inspector Eamonn Henry became the latest addition to the Cold Case Unit.

  “Before the Unit was set up we studied Cold Case Units in other jurisdictions,” says Christy Mangan.

  We looked at the Scottish model, the Welsh, the English and also Cold Case Units in the USA and we spoke with the PSNI. We learned a great deal from those links. Reviews of unsolved murders are labour-intensive, resource-intensive. You don’t want to generate unrealistic expectations for families. You have to be very down-to-earth and tell people that your intention is to progress a case, but that this will not always be the result. You have to manage the expectations. When we were set up we began looking at all the unsolved cases since 1980. During each preliminary review we were asking if there was fingerprint evidence, if there was DNA evidence, if there was witness identification evidence, if all the case papers had been preserved, if the case exhibits had been preserved, if there were new forensic opportunities or new witnesses available. Sometimes when a murder occurs, people leave the country. We would always consider if those people might be available now. We are always considering if there might be a change in someone’s mindset all these years later, a change in allegiances, someone who might be able to speak with us now who didn’t back then.

  It was soon after the Cold Case Unit was set up in October 2007 that it began looking at the unsolved murder of Brian McGrath. It would be July 2009 before the work of the Unit came to a climax and a jury returned verdicts at the Central Criminal Court, finding Brian’s wife Vera guilty of murder and Englishman Colin Pinder guilty of manslaughter. At the time of the killing Pinder had been the fiancé of Brian’s daughter Veronica. It was Veronica whose bravery in giving evidence in court had helped finally solve the murder. The case was the first murder to be officially marked as ‘solved’ due to the work of the Cold Case Unit.

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  The Cold Case Unit also took on a number of other cases immediately after it was set up. That’s the way the Unit works, examining a number of murder files at any one time. Some cases move quicker than others, some see breakthroughs, some hit brick walls. The Unit learned a valuable less
on with one of the first cases it reviewed. A prime suspect in the murder of a woman in Limerick in the 1980s had left Ireland even before the murder was discovered. The Cold Case Unit had taken on the international hunt for this man, who after fleeing Ireland had moved through North and South America, mainland Europe and then to England. The cold-case detectives obtained an address for the man, and arrangements were being made for his arrest when word came through that he had in fact died just a few weeks before. The disappointment felt by the Unit was almost palpable but they picked themselves up and started investigating other cases.

  This particular case gives an insight into the life of a suspected killer ‘on the run’. The man had fled Ireland within a short time of the woman’s murder, flying from Shannon Airport to Heathrow. Gardaí established that he cashed traveller’s cheques in London and Peterborough within a short time of arriving in England. He then flew to Miami where he was found unconscious by members of the Florida Highway Patrol after attempting to take his own life. He was later discharged from hospital and returned to England, where he then withdrew money from a bank account in Torquay. During all this time, the murdered woman’s body had still not been found. It was two and a half months after the murder that the alarm was raised when concerned neighbours and extended family of the woman asked Gardaí to force entry to her home. The victim was found in an upstairs rear bedroom, covered by a quilt. She had been strangled with a man’s necktie.

  As detectives began a murder investigation, the man who would become the prime suspect was continuing to travel around England. His car had been located at Shannon Airport and Gardaí liaised with other police forces to alert them that the man was wanted for questioning about a murder in Ireland. However, it would appear that there was no real active international pursuit of this man back in the 1980s. Gardaí carried out a full enquiry, forensically examining the scene and speaking with neighbours of the murdered woman, but with the prime suspect now gone from Ireland, it would seem the investigation hit a wall, and eventually wound down. Over the following years word came back to Gardaí that the suspect had been in Portimao in Portugal and back in the United States, but on each occasion he was long gone by the time Irish detectives were alerted. On one occasion in the early 1990s he actually contacted the British Consulate in the American state of Georgia and said he wanted to return to Ireland and turn himself in, and he even collected a new passport and got a taxi to the airport. However, he never boarded the flight to Ireland and the following year he surfaced in Mexico. He later called to the British Embassy in Spain to renew his passport. When Gardaí sought further details from Madrid they were told that none could be given as the man was ‘sought for interview’ as opposed to there being a warrant for his arrest. Again by the time Gardaí learned the man had been in Spain, he had vanished again.