The Cold Case Files (30 page)

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.

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.

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 without 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.

At the offices of the Cold Case Unit at Harcourt Square, Detective Superintendent Christy Mangan says the detectives in his unit make hundreds of recommendations in every case
they review. “If we then give a case back to local detectives for those recommendations to be followed, resources from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation can be deployed to assist
with that. There is no point in making a large number of recommendations if they are not going to be acted upon, you have to act upon them and act quickly. When we provide a report on a case, that
doesn’t mean our input is finished; we are there to assist to ensure the recommendations are brought to a finality.” Those recommendations might be that a witness be re-interviewed, or
a fresh search be undertaken for a murder weapon, or fresh forensic tests be carried out.

Christy Mangan stresses that reviewing an unsolved murder enquiry can often take longer than the original enquiry lasted.

While there are some cases which the Cold Case Unit are investigating away from the media glare, there are others which they have publicly confirmed they are actively re-investigating. These are
cases where members of the Unit have carried out a preliminary review and found that there is merit to going further and committing to carrying out a full review of all case material in an effort
to see if a killer or killers can finally be brought to justice. On the Serious Crime Review Team page on the Garda website there are a number of cases in which the Cold Case Unit are appealing to
the public to give assistance. Two of the most recent such cases are the separate murders of Irene White and Emer O’Loughlin, which both occurred in 2005.

Forty-three-year-old mother-of-three Irene White was washing dishes in her home when she was attacked by an intruder and stabbed to death in Dundalk on 6 April 2005. She suffered multiple
injuries to her chest and back. Irene’s body was found by her 79-year-old mother at 12.30 p.m. when she made her daily walk from her mobile home in the back garden into her daughter’s
house to share a meal with her. Irene’s mother died six months later, on what would have been Irene’s 44th birthday.

Detectives have been seeking to identify a man seen running from the vicinity of Irene’s house at 10.15 a.m. on the day of the murder. He was described as being aged between 30 and 40, and
he was wearing jeans, a dark jacket and a peaked cap. He ran through Ice House Hill Park, adjoining Irene’s house, into O’Hanlon Park and left the area in a dark-coloured car which had
been parked nearby. A number of arrests were made by detectives investigating Irene’s murder but the crime remains unsolved.

Two days after Irene White was murdered another shocking murder occurred, this time in the west of the country. There is no link between the two cases. It was on the morning of 8 April 2005 that
the body of 23-year-old Emer O’Loughlin was found in a burnt-out caravan at Ballybornagh, Tubber, in Co. Clare. The Garda Cold Case Unit have been examining this case and as part of their
enquiries Emer’s body was exhumed in 2010. Detectives believe Emer suffered a violent attack which caused her death and that her killer then set fire to the caravan in an attempt to make the
death look like an accident. Gardaí wish to speak with a man who it’s thought may have faked his own death and may in fact have fled the country. The man’s clothing and personal
belongings were found abandoned on one of the Aran Islands, and it was initially thought he might have jumped into the sea, but it’s now believed the clothing may have been deliberately
placed there as part of an elaborate scheme to attempt to throw detectives off the scent. Gardaí are liaising closely with other police forces through Interpol in an effort to track this
man.

While the work of the Cold Case Unit is by its nature quite slow, results are beginning to show. The successful prosecution of the two killers of Brian McGrath (murdered at his Westmeath home in
1987) was the first major achievement of the Serious Crime Review Team. The Unit is working on a number of other cases where it is felt criminal charges may be brought. More and more families of
murder victims are making contact, asking for their loved one’s unsolved murder to be reviewed. In 2011 the Unit lost two of its most experienced detectives when Alan Bailey and Noel Mooney
both retired after more than 30 years’ service each. As the work of the Cold Case Unit evolves, perhaps not only will two new Gardaí come into the Unit to fill those shoes, but the
Unit’s manpower may also increase. “In relation to what we do in the Serious Crime Review Team, we do bring some sense of justice to families of victims,” reflects Christy
Mangan.