The Cold Case Files

by Barry Cummins

  Eddie McCabe was a married father of four young boys. In an interview on RTÉ News in the aftermath of the murder, Eddie’s wife Linda held her children closely as she described how her husband was a good father. With tears streaming down her face she said there was no reason why anyone could have had a grudge against him, and she urged anyone with information to speak with Gardaí. As is the case with so many unsolved murders, over the following years few reporters contacted the McCabe family to see how they were coping.

  On Friday 1 December 2006, Eddie McCabe’s eldest son, Eddie Junior, was found critically injured in a laneway at Tyrconnell Road in Inchicore. He had been severely beaten, suffering horrific injuries to his face, in particular to his eyes. He was rushed to hospital and survived for a week before he died on 8 December. Eddie Junior was just ten years old when his father was murdered in Tallaght in November 1995. He had sat with his heartbroken mother as she gave that interview to RTÉ News back then. And just eleven years later he too became a murder victim, and although Gardaí at Kevin Street continue to pursue his case, Eddie Junior’s killers have not been brought to justice, just like his father’s killer or killers.

  As Gardaí began to investigate the double murder of Catherine Brennan and Eddie McCabe, the following months saw more unsolved gun murders. By the end of 1996 two men had been shot dead in Dublin city (two separate murders—one at Parnell Street and the other at Ellis Street), and there were also fatal shootings in Finglas and Coolock. Nineteen-ninety-seven saw a lull in such murders, due in no small part to the Garda response to the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, which saw considerable resources deployed to upset the workings of criminal gangs. However, by 1998 gangs were murdering at will once again. One man was shot dead in Drumcondra and another man was murdered in Stepaside in south Co. Dublin. The murder rate increased even further in 1999 and so too did the rate of such crimes which would never be solved. There were a number of gun murders in Dublin and one in Dundalk. Indeed Co. Louth had also borne witness to a number of other gun murders in the 1990s, including the murder of a man who was found shot dead in his car at Collon in 1992. Both Limerick and Cork were also the scenes of gun murders in the 1990s which would never be solved, and as a new millennium dawned, over time it would become apparent that the rate of such killings would only increase.

  Every case is different, and behind every unsolved murder there is a bigger picture and often a story of major efforts to catch the killer. In May 1994 a man from Co. Louth was shot dead at a biker’s event in Co. Wicklow. The victim was a hard-working, innocent man who was attacked by criminals who were also at the event. The victim died after being shot once in the head. No-one was ever convicted of the murder. However, substantial work by detectives led to one Dublin man pleading guilty to a charge of possessing the firearm in Co. Wicklow sometime before it was used. Certainly it can be said that Gardaí ‘failed’ to fully solve the case, but they did unmask one person who was later jailed for handling the murder weapon, and that is a lot more than often happens in cases of gun murder.

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  In July 1996 the body of missing man Patrick O’Driscoll was found buried in a shallow grave in woodland at Lotabeg, near Mayfield in Cork. Patrick’s dismembered body was buried near the base of a sycamore tree. His skull and torso were found in a sports bag and other parts of his body were found nearby. His body was found three weeks after a man who had been on trial for Patrick’s murder walked free from the Central Criminal Court at the direction of the trial judge. The accused had faced trial for murder even though Patrick’s body had, at that time, not been found. The accused was also suspected of involvement in the disappearance of two other men—Cathal O’Brien and Kevin Ball—who have not been seen since April 1994. Cathal O’Brien from Co. Wexford was a 22-year-old socially conscious young man who had befriended a homeless man, Kevin Ball, while working as a volunteer with the Simon Community. Cathal lived in a flat at Wellington Terrace on the north side of Cork city. Despite extensive searches by Cathal’s family over many years, no trace of either man has been found.

  There are a number of other cases of people who vanished in Cork in the 1990s. One of those is 23-year-old Michelle McCormick, who disappeared from Owenahincha Holiday Park in west Cork in July 1993. When last seen she was wearing black cycling shorts, a black top and flip-flop shoes. Investigations have led Gardaí to fear that Michelle was killed and her body thrown into the sea at Kinsale Harbour in a bag weighed down with stones. Almost ten years after her disappearance a man was charged with the manslaughter of Michelle McCormick, but the case was later withdrawn and the man walked free from court.

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  In many unsolved killings, the belief of Gardaí is that the answer to unlocking the mystery may lie within the local community. In April 2011 the family of Padraic O’Cofaigh made an appeal on RTÉ’s Crimecall programme for help to find the person responsible for killing the 18-year-old in an apparent hit-and-run incident in Co. Meath on 9 June 1996. Padraic had been walking home from a disco which he had attended in the nearby village of Athboy close to the Rathcairn Gaeltacht, when he was hit by a car on the Dunderry Road. Padraic was found lying on the road at 3.15 a.m. by a couple driving home. As part of the appeal Detective Inspector Alf Martin said there were people who were out that night who were now fifteen years older and he urged people with information to come forward. He said the case had been reviewed on an ongoing basis and that the Cold Case Unit had given advice to local detectives. The Garda said that he believed the answer was quite possibly in the local community, and his colleague Garda Aoife King made an appeal in Irish. The focus of the appeal was very much directed at local people in this part of Co. Meath.

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  In Galway, detectives continue to investigate the shocking murder of taxi-driver Eileen Costello O’Shaughnessy, who was beaten to death on the night of Sunday 30 November 1997. Eileen was coming towards the end of her shift when her killer struck. It was at 8.15 p.m. that Eileen last checked in with the dispatcher at Galway Taxis. Eileen said she was going to Claregalway, a town six miles north of Galway on the N17 road to Tuam. The dispatcher assumed Eileen had a fare in the taxi. About twenty minutes later the dispatcher tried to contact Eileen by radio to pick up another fare in Claregalway, but Eileen didn’t answer her radio.

  At 11.44 p.m. three men found Eileen’s bloodstained taxi. The silver Toyota Carina was parked oddly in the middle of a car park off the N17 road. The car lights were off and there was no-one inside but the driver’s window was open and the keys were in the ignition. It was soon established that the vehicle had been driven by Eileen Costello O’Shaughnessy, who was unaccounted for. A major search was immediately undertaken, but it was the next morning before Eileen was found at a muddy boreen near Claregalway. It was clear that Eileen had been beaten to death in her taxi and her body then left in the laneway before her killer drove the taxi back towards Galway city. Eileen’s murder has been the subject of a number of cold-case reviews, but her killer has not been brought to justice.

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  There were many other murders in the 1990s which would not be solved. A 27-year-old woman was beaten to death in an apartment in Dublin city in December 1996. A 21-year-old woman was stabbed to death at the Grand Canal near Baggot Street in June 1998. Two months previously the body of a man was found in Co. Louth, just a few yards from the Armagh border. The victim, who was from Belfast, had been stabbed to death. As the new millennium approached, the violence continued when a man was beaten to death in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, in December 1999. The year 2000 would prove that unsolved murders were only going to increase in number as time went on. The body of Kieran Smyth was found in a field near Ashbourne, Co. Meath, in February. His hands and legs had been tied, his head was covered with heavy tape and he had been shot. Gardaí built up an amount of intelligence about people suspected of involvement in the paramilitary-style murder, but no-one was charged. In July 2000 Dundalk publican Stephen Connolly was shot dead by
a lone gunman. It’s believed Mr Connolly was murdered by renegade members of the INLA because he refused to pay them money as part of a protection racket. In August INLA member Nicky O’Hare was shot dead in Dundalk. As the year continued there were also more non-paramilitary related murders. In November 2000 Francis Fitzgerald was shot dead in his flat at Annamoe Terrace, Cabra, in north Dublin. The following month Eddie Ryan was shot dead at a pub in Limerick city. That murder was one of the first in a feud which would claim many more lives in Limerick throughout the decade. Some of those murders would be solved and some would not. Indeed, the rest of the decade would see shocking levels of violence.

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  In December 2000 Sandra Collins disappeared from the village of Killala in Co. Mayo. The 28-year-old had gone to the shop for sausages at 7.45 p.m. but never came home. The last sighting of Sandra was in a chip-shop later that night, at around 11.15 p.m. Detectives have been trying to establish where Sandra was in the three and a half hours between leaving the shop and entering the chipper, and it’s believed the answer may be crucial to finding out what happened to her thereafter. Sandra never made it home from the chip-shop and her family and Gardaí both fear she was murdered and her body hidden. Sandra’s fleece was later found on the ground at the old pier in Killala and the sausages she had bought on the evening she disappeared were still in her pocket. The water around Killala was thoroughly searched but no trace of Sandra was found, and a working theory is that the fleece may have been planted at the pier by someone who had attacked Sandra. In 2011 Sandra’s family said they now believed that she had been pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

  Also in 2011 Gardaí based at Ballina carried out a number of arrests as part of their ongoing efforts to locate Sandra Collins. A man in his forties was arrested on suspicion of murder and later released. Another man and a woman were arrested separately and held on suspicion of withholding information and both were also subsequently released.

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  Recent decades have seen the proliferation of CCTV play an important part in assisting Garda investigations. It is only because someone set a video camera recording in the Rossfield Estate in Tallaght in September 2001 that we know that 12-year-old Stephen Hughes Connors died as a result of an arson attack on the makeshift hut he was sleeping in (see Chapter 6). The person who set the camera recording was trying to catch whoever was causing criminal damage to vehicles nearby, but by sheer chance it captured on film the man who walked up to the hut and set it on fire. Unfortunately, the footage was not of sufficient quality to clearly identify the facial features of the arsonist. But the very fact that the footage was recorded is to be welcomed. If that footage had not existed, it is quite possible that it would never have been established that Stephen had been violently killed and the fire might have mistakenly been put down to a tragic accident. It might never have been known that a man had deliberately set fire to the hut shortly after 5.10 a.m. that Friday morning. It begs the question—how many violent acts have been committed which have actually never been detected as being violent? How many murders have been committed, where the cause of death has mistakenly been put down as accidental?

  In July 2002 a fight between two groups of Chinese men on Dublin’s O’Connell Street was captured by the myriad of CCTV cameras which are positioned on the city’s main thoroughfare. The footage, recorded at 1.30 a.m., showed a number of the men were armed with knives, and the knife-fight ensued at the north end of O’Connell Street, close to the Parnell monument. A 22-year-old man, Qui Hong Xiang, was fatally stabbed. After suffering his injury, he ran towards Parnell Square before collapsing on the pavement. He was rushed to the Mater Hospital but pronounced dead a short time later. There was nowhere else in Ireland with more CCTV cameras than O’Connell Street, but still the killer got away. The footage helped Gardaí to prosecute four other men who were involved in the same fight, but the DPP took the view that the footage did not clearly show the person who had inflicted the fatal wound on the victim. No murder or manslaughter charge was ever brought, and this killing which was captured on camera remains unsolved. The case gives a valuable lesson in that CCTV is an essential part of crime-fighting, but it is not foolproof.

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  In recent years a number of shocking murders have occurred for which no-one has been brought to justice. On 19 November 2006 mother-of-two Baiba Saulite was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in the Holywell estate in Swords, Co. Dublin. An inquest into her death which was held in 2011 heard that Gardaí had evidence to suggest her murder had been a contract killing. A file recommending charges had been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but the DPP decided not to bring anyone before the courts. The inquest heard that the murder investigation could not now be progressed without new evidence.

  Less than a month after Baiba Saulite was murdered in cold blood, another innocent person was murdered by criminals. Apprentice plumber Anthony Campbell was working at a house at Scribblestown Park in west Dublin when gunmen burst in. In an upstairs bedroom the intended target of the gunmen, Martin Hyland, was shot six times as he slept. Anthony Campbell was held at gunpoint where he was working downstairs. He raised his arms in defence but he was shot once in the head by callous killers who took his life so their identity would not be revealed. Anthony was a decent young man who travelled from his home in Dublin city that morning to do a plumbing job in Scribblestown Park. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like the murder of Baiba Saulite, authorities said no stone would be left unturned, and all necessary resources would be deployed to catch Anthony’s killers. But despite the best Garda efforts, no-one was ever brought to justice for this double-murder. An inquest into both deaths, which was held in 2011, heard that 14 people had been arrested by detectives, but without any new information the investigation had now stalled.

  The year 2006 witnessed many other murders in Dublin which would also remain unsolved. Mother-of-one Donna Cleary was at a house party when she was shot dead in March, after shots were fired indiscriminately into the house because a group of people were refused entry. That same month a 27-year-old man, Shay Bradley, was shot dead in Cabra. Gerard Goulding was shot dead on open ground in Donaghmede in April 2006 and the following month 42-year-old Patrick Harte was murdered outside his home at Edenmore. The father of two was shot dead as he returned home from a school run. In June Keith Fitzsimons was shot dead as he spoke with two other men at Millwood Road in Kilbarrack. Gardaí do not believe Keith was the intended target of the attack. Later that same month 22-year-old James Perdue was shot dead outside an apartment complex in Donaghmede. Wayne Zambra was shot dead while leaving a pub in Dublin’s south inner city in August 2006 and in September Gary Bryan was shot dead in Walkinstown. In November Raymond Collins from Summerhill was shot dead near Croke Park and on 14 December Gerard Byrne was shot dead outside a supermarket in the Irish Financial Services Centre. On 27 December Stephen Ledden was shot in the head as he slept in a house at Upper Oriel Street in Dublin’s north inner city.

  The year 2006 also witnessed gun murders in other parts of the country. Thomas Moran was 27 years old when he was found shot dead at Carew Park in Limerick city in November. Thomas had left his house at O’Malley Park saying he was meeting some people and would be back in five minutes. His family never saw him alive again, and a murder investigation is continuing. Also in November 2006 26-year-old Paul Reay was shot dead in Drogheda, Co. Louth. His killer posed as a road worker to flag down the victim’s car before firing through the window of the vehicle.

  And there are dozens of other murders in the earlier part of that decade and the latter part which are among the unsolved files. A woman originally from Malawi, Paiche Onyemaechi, was found murdered at Piltown, Co. Kilkenny, in July 2004. She had been missing from her Waterford home for a number of weeks. It’s believed she was murdered at another location before her body was left at Piltown. On 16 December of that year 23-year-old Patrick Lawlor from Darndale in north Dublin vanished wi
thout trace, and his family fear that he was murdered and his body hidden. Patrick’s car was later found abandoned at a lay-by near Dublin Airport, but it is suspected that the vehicle may have been put there after Patrick was possibly abducted. The last trace of Patrick was when his mobile phone showed activity at the Baskin Cottages area near Kinsealy on the morning he disappeared.

  A number of innocent men have been victims of gun murders in Ireland in recent years. In April 2005 29-year-old Joseph Rafferty was shot dead by a lone gunman at the Ongar estate in west Dublin. Joseph was a decent, hard-working family man who it’s believed was targeted for assassination by criminals from Dublin’s south inner city. On New Year’s Eve 2002 39-year-old car dealer Sean Poland was shot dead during a robbery at his home at Blackwater, Ardnacrusha, in Co. Clare. Sean’s partner was tied up by the gang during the attack. It’s believed a gang of Limerick city criminals was responsible for the murder. Over 20 people were subsequently arrested, but just like Joseph Rafferty’s murder in 2005, Sean Poland’s murder on the last day of 2002 would eventually become a cold case.

  The year 2003 was a particularly violent one, especially in terms of gun murders which would become cold cases. In January 2003 Niall Mulvihill was shot in his taxi at Spencer Dock Bridge. He drove towards the Mater Hospital but passed out near Dorset Street and died a short time later. Also that month Raymond Sallinger was shot dead in a pub in Dublin’s south inner city. In March Charles Merriman was found shot dead at St Margaret’s Road in Ballymun. In April 2003 27-year-old Paul Ryan from Raheny was shot dead on the side of the road near the village of Coolderry near Birr, Co. Offaly. In May Robert Fitzgerald was shot dead in Moyross in Limerick. In June Ronald Draper was shot dead while working as a doorman at a pub on Dublin’s Eden Quay. John Ryan was gunned down at a house in Thomondgate, Limerick, in July and David McGuinness was shot dead at Balrothery in Tallaght the following day. In August Thomas Canavan was shot dead in a pub in Inchicore and Bernard Sugg was shot dead in a pub in Blanchardstown. In October Peter Sheridan was found shot dead at Scribblestown Lane in Finglas and Michael Campbell-McNamara was found shot and stabbed to death near Southill in Limerick. For every year in recent Irish history there are many unsolved murders.