The Cold Case Files (25 page)

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

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.

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 lesson 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.

It was only when the Cold Case Unit was established in 2007 that a full and vigorous international pursuit of this suspected murderer was undertaken. Utilising the latest investigative
techniques and capitalising on enhanced international police co-operation through Interpol, Gardaí put out a worldwide search strategy. Perhaps because the man had evaded justice for three
decades, it turned out that he was still using his real name. He was tracked down to an address in England and arrangements were made for Gardaí to finally go and knock on his door. However,
just before they travelled, word came back from British police that the man had died on 16 September 2007. He had visited his doctor a week beforehand complaining of breathing difficulties. At the
time of his death, the man had fallen on hard times and had been homeless. He had no criminal convictions in any country, and it would appear that his conscience was plagued by events which had
occurred in Ireland in the 1980s. Cold-case detectives often speak of how somebody’s circumstances can change dramatically following a murder. It might be the killer, or it might be a
witness, but invariably people with something weighing heavily on their mind are more often than not affected greatly by what they know. In this particular case, the prime suspect for the murder of
a 51-year-old woman spent a lifetime ‘on the run’ before dying penniless in a hostel at the age of 64. His only remaining possession was a harmonica, which was forensically examined to
get
DNA
and absolutely confirmed the man’s identity.

This particular murder can never be classified as ‘solved’. No-one has been brought to justice, but it would appear that if the suspect was still alive he would have faced a criminal
trial. The murder is still unsolved, but no-one else is being sought in connection with the killing. The Cold Case Unit learned a valuable lesson in this case; sometimes time catches up with a
killer before they do. However, the Unit are convinced that most of the hundreds of killers responsible for murders in the 1980s and 90s are still out there somewhere.

When detectives went to the Garda archives to begin looking at unsolved murder files, one of the first cases they came across was the killing of 54-year-old Nora Sheehan, who
had been suffocated to death during an attack in Co. Cork in June 1981. Nora was murdered sometime between 6 June and 12 June. She had left her home at Ballyphehane on the southside of Cork city on
the evening of Saturday 6 June 1981 and travelled to the South Infirmary Hospital where she was treated for a dog bite to her arm. After leaving the Accident and Emergency Department Nora had never
made it home. Somewhere along her journey she was abducted. Six days later her body was found at Shippool Wood near Innishannon, seventeen miles west of Cork city. Two forestry workers found
Nora’s body hidden down a steep incline behind a two-foot wall which divided the roadside and the wood. Pathologist Dr Robert Coakley would later conclude that Mrs Sheehan had been choked to
death during a struggle sometime between four and seven days before his examination, and this indicated that Nora was quite possibly murdered on the night she had vanished in Cork city. Local
Superintendent Edward Hogan and Detective Superintendent John Butler of the Garda Technical Bureau made an appeal at the time for help in catching the killer. The Gardaí had released photos
of a fawn-coloured shoe, similar to the shoes Nora had been wearing on the night she disappeared. The shoe for the right foot had been found near Nora’s body, but the left one was missing.
The shoes were under the brand ‘Model Girl’ by Tylers and had a brass type buckle.

The initial murder investigation had identified a man in his thirties as being a suspect in the murder. However, that investigation hit a major difficulty when both the Pathologist, Dr Coakley,
and Detective Superintendent John Butler died unexpectedly. As cold-case detectives read through the full murder file, they saw that there were a number of lines of enquiry that they could now
pursue three decades on. The murder of this woman who had been randomly abducted while walking home from hospital had long troubled the people of Cork city and the original investigating
Gardaí, who never forgot the case. The Cold Case Unit decided that the unsolved murder was one which they would fully review, and they publicly confirmed they were re-investigating the
case.

Another of the earliest unsolved murder files from the 1980s is the murder of Charles Self, who was found stabbed to death in his home in Monkstown in south Dublin in January 1982. Charles was
originally from England and had worked as a set-designer with
RTÉ
since the early 70s. An analysis of the case indicated that Charles had somehow known his attacker.
The murder weapon was a knife which had been taken from the kitchen and later discarded by the killer in the sitting room. Charles’s body was found in the hallway of his home close to the
living room. A major investigation was undertaken at the time but the killer was never brought to justice.

Another case where a man was attacked in his home was that of Christopher Payne, who suffered horrific injuries in an assault on 13 May 1988. The 38-year-old died at Beaumont Hospital on 28
November of that year—over six months after he had been attacked by a gang in his home at Rutland Grove in Crumlin. At the time of the attack Christopher was undergoing dialysis treatment for
a kidney disorder and had just returned from a hospital visit when he was set upon by a number of individuals. The victim was struck on the head with a number of implements and was left in a
vegetative state before he died. As part of a cold-case review, detectives have studied the full original murder file and have also enlisted the assistance of the State Pathologist to review the
medical evidence.

On the afternoon of 7 July 1989 the body of 32-year-old Limerick taxi-driver Henry Hurley was found at Reascamogue, Sixmilebridge, in Co. Clare. He had been beaten and strangled. Mr
Hurley’s 1989 registered Nissan Sunny was found a short distance away. The victim was last seen alive at around 3 a.m. in Co. Clare and it’s believed two men had got into his taxi in
Limerick city a short time earlier. The Garda Cold Case Unit are actively investigating this case, and part of their enquiries have focused on two Englishmen who had arrived in Ireland and had been
travelling around the country at the time of the murder. It’s believed the motive for Mr Hurley’s murder was robbery. Similar to many other cold-case investigations, the Crimestoppers
Trust has offered a reward for information leading to the conviction of Henry Hurley’s killers.

When the Cold Case Unit was set up, one of the first cases to come its way was the murder of Brian Stack, who was the Chief Prison Officer at the high-security Portlaoise Prison. Brian was off
duty and had just left the National Boxing Stadium on Dublin’s South Circular Road, when a gunman walked up behind him on the night of Friday 25 March 1983. The gunman pointed a gun at the
back of Brian’s neck and fired once. Brian’s injury was fatal, but he did not die immediately: he would suffer for eighteen months, paralysed and brain-damaged before his body could no
longer cope with the internal injuries caused by the bullet. Brian died on 29 September 1984. The father of three boys had dedicated his working life to serving the Irish State and, along with so
many other murders, it is galling that Brian Stack’s killers have never been brought to justice. The gunman escaped on a stolen motorbike driven by an accomplice. What is without doubt is
that Brian was shot because of his job at Portlaoise Prison. There are a number of lines of enquiry which are being actively pursued by Gardaí. Detectives have considered that the murder may
have been carried out by paramilitaries, or by members of a criminal gang. The Cold Case Unit carried out a full review of the case and have made a number of recommendations in terms of a fresh
investigation. Brian’s wife Sheila and his sons Austin, Kieran and Oliver have met with detectives on a number of occasions recently and have also visited Dáil Éireann as part
of their efforts to see the case solved. The family know that if Brian was shot dead by paramilitaries, it is possible that because of the Good Friday Agreement the killers might not serve any
great length of time in prison if they were to be convicted. But the Stack family want answers, they want someone to be held accountable, they want the killers to be identified.

When the Cold Case Unit completed its review of the Brian Stack case they gave their recommendations to another team of detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, who are now
pursuing the case. That’s the way the Cold Case Unit operates: there are so many cold cases where if a fresh investigation will be particularly time-consuming (the Brian Stack case, for
example, should see every prisoner who ever came in contact with the victim being interviewed), a team of other detectives is assigned to the case to work full-time on it.