The Torso in the Canal (4 page)

The doctor in question was Y.M. Fakih. He was met at the scene by Detective Sergeant Gerry McDonnell, one of the most experienced officers attached to the District Detective Unit at Fitzgibbon Street, who had arrived at the canal. He too saw what appeared to him to be mutilated limbs of a body submerged in the canal water. There was obviously nothing the doctor could do but confirm the remains were human.

The body parts could not be moved that evening so they were left in the water overnight to preserve them and any evidence that may have been left behind. Uniformed gardaí were left guarding the canal bank to keep the public from contaminating the scene. By this time, news of the gruesome discovery had broken on the news bulletins. Photographers and journalists descended on the north inner city while curious onlookers gathered on the canal bridge.

Rumours of the torso in the canal spread among the residents of the local flat complexes and housing estates. Teenagers and curious onlookers gathered to watch: among them were Charlotte and Linda.

They had been watching the evening news when their worst fears were realised. Inside the flat, Linda cried uncontrollably when a report on the body find was broadcast. She could barely comprehend what was happening.

‘We were all in the house crying. We then went down close to the bridge, close to where the guards had the tape. We walked on the side away from the Gala. We asked some people what was after happening. We went home and watched the news,’ she later recalled.

A sense of blind panic consumed the sisters. Linda was unable to stop crying; Charlotte was also overrun by emotion. They comforted each other, and drank as much alcohol as possible in a desperate attempt to come to terms with what they had done, but also to quell a sense of terror that had quickly enveloped them.

Linda feared jail more than anything else. She thought about being separated from her children.

Charlotte was also gripped by fear. In fact, neither of them could eat properly nor sleep; instead they spent their waking hours trying to imagine what would happen.

*****

Meanwhile the ten days that had passed since they had killed Noor now seemed like an eternity. Linda, perhaps, more than Charlotte, knew things would never be the same again. No matter what way she examined the situation, no matter how much she tried to deny she would be caught, she could not escape from the fact that sooner or later, she knew someone was going to come looking for her. Waiting for this event to happen, more than anything else, terrified her.

The next time her sister Marie gave Charlotte’s story more thought was when she heard that the body of a man had been found in the Royal Canal. She was sitting watching the news on
TV3
with her father when she saw the report. The location of the body meant nothing to her as she wasn’t aware of where her mother lived, as she had dropped contact with her soon after Kathleen started going out with Noor. She had a brief conversation with her father about the news item, but did not discuss what Charlotte had drunkenly spoken about a few days previously. She would never have imagined that Charlotte could do such a thing. She would have called the gardaí if she had made the connection.

In any event, John Mulhall Snr appeared to Marie to know nothing about it, and they moved on to talking about more mundane matters. Marie would later make a statement which read:

‘I discussed the news story with my father, John. We just had a short conversation about it. He did not seem to know anything about the body at that stage.’

Chapter Three

‘Every murder turns on a bright hot light, and a lot of people have to walk out of the shadows.’

-
Albert Maltz, writer
, The Naked City

 
The task of
removing the body parts began at 8.30am the following morning. However, this was complicated by the fact that divers from the Garda Sub-Aqua Unit had to map out the exact locations of the body parts in the canal and retrieve any forensic evidence present.

The canal was 1.8 metres deep under the bridge, which made the job even more difficult. It should also be noted that Noor’s torso had already been taken from the water by this stage by two officers, Brian Breathnach and Eoin Ferriter. They began removing the smaller body parts that were visible from the bank around 9.55am after they had surveyed the scene.

It was clear from the start that those tasked with investigating the killing understood the importance of gathering as much vital evidence as possible. To ensure this goal was achieved, an underwater video camera was erected to document the search for forensic evidence.

The process was slow, and in many ways revolting. The body parts were in an advanced state of decomposition; the flesh was brittle to the touch and came off the bone easily when disturbed. The garda divers had to be careful when handling the remains for this reason.

In total, the divers found seven body parts in the water directly under Clarke’s Bridge. Each one of these was placed in a special plastic bag while still underwater, to preserve it, and then brought to the surface; a process which took hours.

Even though no post-mortem examination had taken place to show how the victim had died, the brutality of the act was obvious to all. There was no doubt that this had been a savage killing—perhaps the most savage the detectives had ever investigated.

The torso, they could easily see, was peppered with stab wounds, dozens of them, from which little water creatures emerged.

When the bags containing the body parts had been removed from the canal, they were collected by the Dublin firm of undertakers, Staffords, and taken to Beaumont Hospital in north Dublin, where they were x-rayed, before being transported to the city’s morgue for a post-mortem examination.

It should be noted that the body parts were contained in two separate bags. Few of the pathology staff and the gardaí who received them had ever experienced anything like it. There were seven body parts in total but the absence of the head was very much to the front of the detectives’ minds.

This caused many of those present to ponder as to what exactly had happened. All felt there was something deeply saddening about the murder, which was lost on many of the journalists who reported on the death. The victim had not just been murdered; his remains had been denigrated in a most brutal fashion. This feeling hung like an ominous shadow over the body parts.

Behind the bloodshed and the grisly way the victim’s body had been disposed of, there was a person, and possibly a family. This fact was not lost on those on the investigation team, who ordered the body parts to be treated with a great degree of respect, similar to that shown to a body.

 The post-mortem examination began in the evening when Dr Michael Curtis, the deputy state pathologist, arrived at the Dublin City Morgue. The purpose of the post-mortem itself was to establish whether the victim had been murdered, or had, for some reason, been dismembered after dying of natural causes. None of the detectives assembled thought about discounting the latter scenario; it was unlikely, but it was something they could not rule out.

Among those assembled to witness the first examination of the body were the team whose job it would be to first identify the victim, and then track down the killers. Overall responsibility for investigating the crime rested with the District Detective Unit attached to Fitzgibbon Street Station. However, they were joined by detectives from nearby Store Street and Mountjoy Garda Stations, and also the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, who had been seconded to assist.

The actual responsibility for the inquiry rested with the local detective team led by Christy Mangan, a detective inspector. He was a police officer who took a direct approach to his job; he didn’t suffer fools gladly and tended to deal with people in a straight, no nonsense way. He knew the streets, the shady characters that inhabited Dublin’s underworld, and how the wheels of justice turned.

However, Mangan had never overseen a murder inquiry where a body had been dismembered, but few in the Garda had. The one personality trait he possessed that would stand to him was his fervent belief in maintaining an open mind at all times on everything.

While every member of the team had of course investigated countless murders, it was obvious that the torso in the canal was no ordinary killing. It was evident to all that whoever the victim was, he had suffered an unimaginable death. Among the crimes and atrocities that had convulsed Ireland, this—the dismemberment of a body—stood out as horrific, virulent and cruel. Though they all knew they were dealing with a violent death, and possibly something far more sinister, the dismemberment presented so many questions that the post-mortem took on a special urgency.

*****

The procedure itself began at 7.40pm that evening and consisted of a thorough examination of what remained of the corpse in the beleaguered hope that it could determine the cause and manner of death.

Working methodically, Dr Curtis removed the various body parts from the two bags. Those present in the room were all struck by the smell of decomposition, which was at times overpowering.

It should be noted that no one knew whether the victim was black or white at this stage; there had been a degree of epidermal separation, which had turned the victim’s flesh white, disguising his race, and his likely country of origin.

In accordance with procedure, each of the body parts was first measured and photographed. When this task was complete, the pathologist began an external examination of the remains. This was carried out in a forensic fashion; he noted the various segments and the kind of clothes found with the dismembered remains.

Of course, the most obvious missing parts of the body were the head and the victim’s penis. The pathologist also noted there were a number of items of clothing found. There was the white-coloured Ireland jersey, but there was also a vest, a white checked towel and a pair of socks. These were looked at closely.

In many ways it was a difficult post-mortem. For a start, the body was contaminated with silt and fresh water prawns, which fed on the flesh, particularly around the wounds. These hampered the speed of the examination.

The pathologist next took a description of the body as best he could. He noted the sex and other distinguishing features, which could help identify the victim, but these proved elusive given the dismemberment. The dissection of the body, brutal and hurried as it was, had had the desired effect, insofar that it made parts of the post-mortem difficult. Dr Curtis, though, persevered.

He then examined each body part. One of the first examined in detail was the upper torso. The pathologist noticed it still contained most of the soft tissue that surrounds the abdomen. The examination of this body part revealed in excess of 22 stab wounds to the upper torso in the front and rear. There were also three cuts to the back. Whoever had stabbed the victim had done so with enormous ferocity.

Judging the shape of the wounds, the pathologist guessed the weapon was some type of sharp knife, possibly a kitchen knife.

Once the torso was examined, he moved on to the right and left upper limbs. These, he proclaimed to the detectives, had been divided at the level of the upper humerus on each side. He had never seen anything like it in his career.

Another body part that yielded some more clues was the lower torso, which still contained the hip joints. The pathologist recorded that a pair of white underpants were present on these.

Below the pants, he found the penis of the victim had been cut off, along with an anterior part of the scrotum. This was a barbaric act by any standard.

He also noted the upper femora had been divided. In fact, the detached thighs had been divided just above the knee. Both lower limbs were there as well, with the feet intact. He noted the presence of grey-charcoal socks on each foot.

The body was next cleaned, weighed and measured in preparation for an internal examination. This was to be unique insofar as the chest was easier to cut open, showing maximum exposure of the trunk. This part of the post-mortem consisted of inspecting the internal organs of the body parts for evidence of trauma, or other indications of the cause of death.

Dr Curtis began this by making a large and deep Y-shaped incision from shoulder to shoulder, meeting at the breastbone and extending all the way down to the abdomen. The chest plate was opened, so that the heart and lungs could be seen.

At this stage of the medical process, the organs were left exposed. From close inspection of the wounds, he confirmed a sharp knife had been used to stab the victim. While the soft tissue around the bones had been severed clumsily by repeated blows or chopping from an axe or cleaver, the incisions into the flesh were smooth.

He found that virtually all of the internal organs—the heart, lungs, kidneys and bladder—had been injured in the assault that had taken the victim’s life. When he examined all of the sections together, he noted that the head, penis and cervical spine were absent.

Mangan did not discount the importance of this particular information, which suggested that a personal grudge, possibly of a sexual nature, may have been the motive for the killing.

When Dr Curtis had finished his examination, he concluded the victim had died from numerous stab wounds; he was then dismembered. Part of his job was to give the team an idea of what type of man they were looking for.

He was able to make some calculations on the victim’s height, race and age with some simple calculations. He assembled all the body parts on the post-mortem table; they measured 5 feet 4 inches. He concluded that the victim would have been about six feet tall in life.

The post-mortem was unique insofar as Dr Curtis could not perform a reconstitution of the body, such that it could be viewed, if desired, by relatives of the deceased, if they were ever found.

This was exactly the type of information that Mangan required although, in truth, the post-mortem didn’t reveal many clues about the victim’s identity. However it did provide the detectives with an idea about how he died. The most noticeable aspect was that there were no defensive injuries on the hands. Whoever the victim was, he had probably been taken by surprise, and most likely knew his killers.

*****

It was not the first time a corpse had been found in the Royal Canal in the north inner city. Cold blooded killers had used the waterway to dump the bodies of their victims in the past. Four years earlier, in July 2001, youths had found a suitcase in the exact same stretch of canal, which contained the bruised and bloodied body of a Romanian national named Adrian Bestia. He had been just 23 years old when he was murdered.

The discovery of Noor’s remains, though, was starkly different from an investigators point of view, for the simple fact that whoever had killed him had gone to great lengths to disguise his identity. It wasn’t, however, the first time that gardaí dealt with a headless corpse. In July 2004, less than a year prior to Noor’s remains being discovered, a headless body was found beside a stream near Piltown, a village in Co. Kilkenny. The victim was a 25-year-old Malawi woman named Paiche Onyemaechi. She was a mother of two and daughter of the Chief Justice of Malawi, Leonard Unyolo. Her head was never found.

She was identified by cross-checking her fingerprints against the asylum-seeker database, which contains prints taken from all asylum seekers who have entered Ireland since November 2001. As Noor had arrived in Ireland in 1996, checking his fingerprints against this database yielded no information, although gardaí were hopeful his fingerprints could be matched with a set on the Garda database.

The only other case of dismemberment encountered by the Garda was over 40 years ago. In 1963 a medical student, Shan Mohangi, had murdered and dismembered his 16-year-old girlfriend Hazel Mullen, before boiling her remains in the basement of a restaurant on Harcourt Street in Dublin city.

The prosecution of Mohangi was a relatively straightforward affair though, as he was caught at the scene with the dissected body. In this case, the detective team didn’t even know whose murder they were investigating.  

Through the post-mortem examination, it had been established that the body was that of a black male, so gardaí began canvassing members of the ethnic community in Dublin.

This became the focus of the immediate inquiry. The problem that Mangan faced was where to find a missing man, possibly an immigrant, in a city where immigrants used various names and changed identities regularly.

If this crime were to be solved, it would be through old fashioned investigation techniques, and not luck.

In the hours that followed the extraction of the body parts from the water, Mangan had set up an incident room in the station. He wanted this to act as a nerve centre for the inquiry, but also as an interface, where the public could pass on relevant information.

Among the assembled team were Detective Sergeant Gerry McDonnell, Detective Garda Dave O’Brien, Detective Garda Adrian Murray and Detective Garda Dan Kenna, who began to compile statements that would be used in the book of evidence.

From the beginning, the team made a conscious decision to use the press to encourage those with any information to come forward. This was relatively easy because the discovery of the body parts had continued to dominate the news headlines. When the follow-up searches of the canal failed to locate the victim’s head; interest in the inquiry soared. The question remained: where was the victim’s head?

Behind the fanfare of media speculation, the investigation team got to work. The inquiry initially took various forms, but the prime focus was to identify the victim.