Missing (2 page)

There are so many questions and so few concrete answers. Are the men who killed some of Ireland’s missing women family men? Do their parents or wives or children suspect them? Are they men
with no previous convictions, having never come to the attention of the Gardaí? Are they local people who know the area around the site of each disappearance? Or are they living a vagrant
life, travelling around Ireland or beyond, evading detection? Have some of them already taken their secret to their grave? Or are they in prison serving sentences for other crimes, and remaining
for ever silent about their evil deeds?

Detectives investigating many unsolved missing and murder cases will often state publicly that somebody knows something that could help solve the crime. A perfect example of the truth of this
belief was seen at the Central Criminal Court in October 2002 when John Crerar, a former army sergeant and father of five from Co. Kildare with no previous convictions, was convicted of the murder
of 23-year-old Phyllis Murphy, who was raped and murdered in December 1979. For twenty-three years John Crerar evaded capture for one of Ireland’s oldest unsolved crimes, but he was finally
caught after two crucial developments. The first came when advances in forensic science finally identified semen taken from Phyllis Murphy’s body as being Crerar’s. The second was that
one man’s conscience finally got the better of him.

From December 1979 until July 1999 a former workmate of John Crerar’s, Paddy Bolger, gave Crerar an alibi for the night Phyllis Murphy was abducted and murdered. He said Crerar had been
working alongside him as a security guard at the Black and Decker plant in Kildare throughout the night of 22 December 1979. It was only when detectives put it to Bolger in July 1999 that they had
scientific evidence to suggest that Crerar was the murderer that Paddy Bolger suddenly admitted that he was lying, and had been lying for twenty years. Lies like these have protected other
murderers, and may continue to protect some of Ireland’s most evil killers. Paddy Bolger did not think his colleague could have been the vicious killer who took the life of Phyllis Murphy; by
the time his suspicions began to form, the lie was already established, and for almost twenty years he kept his mouth shut.

The successful prosecution of John Crerar is vital in considering the difficulties faced by detectives investigating the murders of missing women in Leinster. For twenty-seven days Phyllis
Murphy’s naked body lay undiscovered in a wooded area near the Wicklow Gap. Despite the length of time it took to find her remains, the forces of nature conspired eventually to put her killer
behind bars. During the four weeks that her body lay hidden by ferns in a dense forested area, freezing temperatures preserved her body and in turn the valuable evidence that twenty-three years
later would lead to John Crerar being jailed for the murder. Within hours of the body being discovered a sheet of snow lay across the eastern part of Ireland. If the body had still been lying in
the forest, the blanket of snow would most probably have concealed it from view. As it was, the recovery of Phyllis Murphy’s body was a source of comfort to her grieving family, who already
knew in their hearts that something terrible had happened to her.

From the point of view of the Garda investigation, the recovery of Phyllis Murphy’s body was crucial. In 1979, because of the small amount of the sample recovered from the body, the type
of scientific analysis available could not establish the DNA profile of the killer to be matched with any of the many local men who volunteered a blood sample. In March 1980 John Crerar volunteered
a blood sample at a Garda station. However, it would be another nineteen years before advances in DNA technology enabled forensic scientists to match his blood with the swabs taken from Phyllis
Murphy’s body. It was thanks to the foresight of a number of gardaí, including Christy Sheridan (now retired), who stored the swabs in a Garda safe ‘just in case,’ that a
23-year murder mystery was eventually solved.

The investigation into the murder of Phyllis Murphy is a perfect example of how crucial it is to have a body or a crime scene when investigating a murder. For the four weeks before the body was
found in January 1980 Phyllis Murphy was classified as a missing person. From the circumstances of her disappearance while she was travelling home from Droichead Nua to Kildare for Christmas it was
clear that something terrible had happened. Yet for those four weeks she was in the same category that Annie McCarrick would be fourteen years later, and later Jo Jo Dullard and the other missing
women. It was only when her body was found that any real progress could be made in catching Phyllis Murphy’s killer.

Another of Ireland’s most violent men was not known to Gardaí when Operation Trace was set up. Larry Murphy, a 36-year-old father of two from Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow, is now serving a fifteen-year prison sentence for one of the most horrific
crimes to be committed in Ireland. Whether or not he has any relevant information relating to any missing women, the circumstances of his shocking crime in February 2000 provide solid evidence that
cold and calculating would-be killers live among us.

Just before midnight on 11 February 2000, Ken Jones and Trevor Moody were hunting in a secluded forest area of Kilranelagh in west Co. Wicklow. It was a quiet night, and both men thought there
was no-one else for miles. Suddenly they heard a piercing scream, followed by the sound of a car revving up. Almost as quickly, the two hunters saw a car approaching them. As it sped past, both men
got a look at the driver of the car—and they both recognised him. It was Larry Murphy from Woodside, a small community a few miles away in Baltinglass. Just then the two men saw the naked
woman. She was stumbling towards them, her face bloodied. As they spotted her, she too saw them. Still trying to comprehend what was going on, the two men approached the woman and—not knowing
what else to say—asked her if she was all right. She recoiled in terror: in her terrified state she thought they were with her abductor, who over the previous three hours had severely beaten,
repeatedly raped and then tried to kill her.

The woman screamed repeatedly, her cries echoing in the secluded forest. Having put down their guns, the two men managed to convince her that they were not going to harm her. They covered her
with one of their jackets, brought her to their car, and set off for the Garda station in Baltinglass, where they were met by three gardaí. They told them the identity of the man who fled
the forest. The woman told them her name and—despite the agony of a fractured nose and the physical injuries resulting from a multiple rape—began telling a harrowing story of what she
had endured. It began to dawn on the gardaí that the two hunters had just saved the woman’s life. Detectives investigating the abductions and suspected murders of a number of women in
Leinster were alerted.

Thirteen months later, on 11 May 2001, Larry Murphy was jailed for fifteen years after admitting four charges of rape and one charge each of kidnapping and attempted murder. A packed courtroom
heard the shocking details of how he had attacked the 28-year-old woman in a secluded car park in Carlow shortly after she left the nearby business premises she ran. He punched her in the face,
fracturing her nose, and forced her to remove her bra, which he used to tie her hands behind her back. He used a headband of a GAA team to gag her mouth and then put her in the boot of his car. He
drove nine miles to Beaconstown, near Athy, Co. Kildare, where he raped her. He then forced her back into the boot and drove fourteen miles to Kilranelagh, Co. Wicklow, where he repeatedly raped
her again.

It was in Kilranelagh that, while being forced back into the boot of the car, the woman managed to free her hands and tried to spray Murphy in the face with an aerosol she had found in the boot.
But the spray didn’t work, and then events took an even more sinister turn. Murphy produced a black plastic bag and put it over the woman’s head and pulled it tightly around her neck.
It was at this point that Ken Jones and Trevor Moody arrived on the scene. Seeing the two men approaching, Murphy fled the scene, leaving his victim lying on the ground. He drove to his home a few
miles away and, having drunk a large amount of whiskey, looked in on his two children, who were fast asleep, and then got into bed beside his wife. He was arrested the next day.

On the day on which he pleaded guilty to rape and attempted murder, Murphy fainted in the Central Criminal Court. As barristers stepped over the unconscious would-be murderer, it was left to two
prison officers to lift him from the carpeted floor of the Central Criminal Court.

It is a sobering fact that before Larry Murphy abducted and attempted to murder his victim in February 2000 he had never come to the attention of the Gardaí. To all intents and purposes
the self-employed carpenter was a dedicated family man and a loving husband. His main passion was hunting, through which he became familiar with the forested land of west Wicklow. Detectives
investigating the disappearance of missing women in the Leinster area over the previous decade had never come across Larry Murphy before his sinister attack on the Carlow woman. It gave their
investigation a fresh impetus, and they began looking into the background of this would-be killer. They were conscious that Murphy lived only five miles from where Jo Jo Dullard was abducted and
murdered, and it was also established that he was working in Droichead Nua in July 1998, when the teenage girl disappeared. His car was searched for any trace of the missing women; but despite
their initial optimism, the Gardaí could find no concrete evidence that Murphy had abducted any women before February 2000. If he had succeeded in killing his victim in February 2000, it is
not known what he planned to do with her body. He has never given any explanation or motive for his attack on the woman, whom he did not know. His wife and two children have since left Co. Wicklow,
and only his close family ever visit him in the high-security Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin.

The depraved nature of the crime for which Larry Murphy was jailed gives us an insight into the mind of a potential killer who chooses his victims at random. When Murphy approached his victim at
the car park in Carlow he had immediately disarmed her by punching her in the face, fracturing her nose. He then used the woman’s own clothing to tie her up. He subjected her to a horrific
and prolonged sexual attack, then used a plastic bag to try to suffocate her. When he set out to abduct, rape and kill, he was confident and calculating. If he had succeeded in murdering his victim
and her body was never discovered, or not discovered until years later, we would never have known of the horrific ordeal she had suffered.

It is believed that three of the six missing women whose cases formed part of Operation Trace were attacked by people who lived in the general locality of each crime. These three cases, in which
the victim was last seen alive at her home, are not believed to be linked to those of any of the other missing women. The first of these cases is that of Fiona Pender, last seen alive at her flat
in Tullamore in August 1996; Ciara Breen was last seen alive in her home at Bachelor’s Walk, Dundalk, in February 1997; and Fiona Sinnott was last seen alive at her home at Broadway, Co.
Wexford, in February 1998. The investigations into each of these disappearances have resulted in suspects being identified. A man from the midlands with a previous history of violence has been
questioned about the murder of Fiona Pender and her unborn baby. A Dundalk man who gardaí believe was in a relationship with Ciara Breen has been arrested and questioned about her murder,
but no charges have so far been brought. And in Co. Wexford a man with a history of violence against women has been earmarked as a suspect in the disappearance of Fiona Sinnott.

The Gardaí have been frustrated at the rate of progress in these three cases, in which prime suspects have been identified but without enough evidence to bring them to court. The
difference between these cases and the solving of the Phyllis Murphy murder is stark. It was only with the discovery of Phyllis Murphy’s body that the crime was solved. On the one hand,
detectives believe this applies also to the cases of these three missing women, barring the unlikely event of a confession, or any of the killers striking again. But in more recent times there is
privately an increasing air of optimism among many detectives that charges may still be brought in the absence of a body. Indeed, though it is very rare, there are a number of examples of
prosecutions for murder without the victim’s body being found. In November 1977 a 24-year-old Co. Armagh man, Liam Townson, was jailed for life by the Special Criminal Court after being
convicted of the murder of Captain Robert Nairac of the SAS, whose body has never been found. Soon after Nairac’s disappearance, in May 1977, gardaí discovered the scene where he had
been shot dead, near Ravensdale, Co. Louth, and Townson was convicted largely on his own confession. The state successfully argued in court that circumstantial evidence, and an admission from the
accused, could be accepted as evidence of death and of murder. During the investigation gardaí had discovered bloodstains and trampled grass near a bridge at Ravensdale, where it is believed
Nairac was shot dead. The IRA claimed responsibility for the killing, and republican sources have since suggested that the body was disposed of in a manner in which it would never be found, by
putting it through a cutting machine. Liam Townson served thirteen years in Port Laoise Prison before being released under licence in 1990. His conviction is one example of a confession made while
under arrest being crucial in securing a murder conviction in the absence of a body. While a confession is indeed an important plank of such a prosecution case, it is not always essential in
bringing charges against suspects.

A more recent example also involved a cross-border investigation. Gerard McGinley was murdered at his home at Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, in August 2000 by his wife, Julie McGinley, and her
lover, Michael Monaghan, who then disposed of the body across the border in Co. Leitrim. Police in the North, investigating what was at first a missing person case, soon concentrated on
McGinley’s home as a possible crime scene. Through the use of chemicals they established that a bedroom had been redecorated to cover up evidence of the murder. Julie McGinley and Michael
Monaghan were charged with murder before Gerard McGinley’s body was found. It was not until June 2001, ten months after his violent death, that it was discovered by a girl walking in a wood
at Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim. Both Julie McGinley and Michael Monaghan are now serving life sentences for murder.