The Cold Case Files Read online

  As they had stood at Whitehall Cemetery, and watched Brian McGrath’s coffin being taken from the ground, detectives knew they had the elements to potentially solve this cold case. They had the forensic and pathology experts who in time would give evidence of identity and cause of death. But they also had that most important element—a witness to the murder, a witness who was prepared to stand up in court and give evidence. Veronica McGrath had first come forward in 1993, seven years after she had witnessed her father’s murder. It would take another sixteen years before she saw her mother jailed for life for murder, and her own former husband jailed for nine years for manslaughter. But Veronica was a determined woman, determined to get justice for her father, determined to see his killers brought to justice.

  The other important factor in the Brian McGrath case was that the suspects were still alive. Cold-case detectives knew well that sometimes time catches up with a suspect before Gardaí had a chance to knock on their door. While the Brian McGrath case was the first successful prosecution for the Cold Case Unit, another case might have got in ahead of it if circumstances had been different.

  Soon after being set up in late 2007 the Unit began working on the unsolved murder of a woman who was strangled to death with a man’s necktie in the 1980s. The woman’s body lay undiscovered in her home for over two and a half months. A man quickly emerged as the prime suspect—he had fled the country and gone to the United States. It was believed he had later gone to Mexico, Portugal and then to England but had never returned to Ireland. On 7 November 2007 the Cold Case Unit under Detective Superintendent Christy Mangan was commissioned by an Assistant Commissioner to review this case and they began an international search for the man. Detective Garda David O’Brien was appointed the Family Liaison Officer, and Detective Garda Padraig Hanly was appointed Exhibits Officer for the fresh review of this unsolved murder. Within a short time the Cold Case Unit had found their man; they learned he had been living in England under his real name for many years. Now that they had an address for the man they began making plans to travel and speak with him, and they liaised with the local English constabulary. However, the initial excitement at finding the suspect’s address was short-lived when it was confirmed by English authorities that the man had actually died of natural causes on 16 September 2007, shortly before the Cold Case Unit was set up.

  By July 2010, when a jury found Vera McGrath guilty of murder and Colin Pinder guilty of manslaughter, there was much public interest in the work of the Garda Cold Case Unit. The murder trial had put the spotlight on the work of a dozen detectives based at Harcourt Square. While their work involved close co-operation with regional detectives, it was the cold-case team which was catching the public’s imagination, the idea that a group of Gardaí spent their entire working day trying to solve murders going back as far as the 1980s. The Unit welcomed some publicity, seeing the media as a means to publicise their work, and to make appeals for people with information about unsolved murders to come forward and ease their consciences. The cold-case investigation into the murder of Brian McGrath put the Cold Case Unit firmly on the map. It led to the successful prosecution of two killers and it brought some solace to Brian’s grieving daughter and his three sons. There was huge potential for solving historic murders if the right elements were in place.

  When the Cold Case Unit was launched in October 2007, many observers remembered the successful cold-case investigation in the late 1990s which had led to the capture of John Crerar, who had abducted and murdered a young woman, Phyllis Murphy, in Co. Kildare in December 1979. Phyllis vanished in Droichead Nua as she walked towards a bus-stop; her body was later found hidden in the Wicklow Gap. For 23 years John Crerar had evaded justice, and it was only when Detective Inspector Brendan McArdle of the Garda Technical Bureau organised for blood samples that had been taken back at the time of the murder to be re-analysed that a full DNA profile of Crerar was matched to the semen found on Phyllis’s body. Two Gardaí, Christy Sheridan and Finbarr McPaul, had safely maintained the blood samples in their lockers from 1979 until Detective McArdle began his work in 1998. When a jury later found John Crerar guilty of murder in November 2002, this successfully solved ‘cold case’ became a perfect example of how advances in forensic science could unmask the identity of a killer many decades after the crime. It had also shown that when confronted by Gardaí in 1999, the man who had given Crerar a false alibi twenty years previously had immediately told the truth. The man had never suspected he had given a false alibi for a murderer, he had merely thought he had been covering for a work colleague by telling a ‘white lie’ to say the man had arrived at work on time on an evening in 1979. The detail of the Phyllis Murphy case was clear evidence that people carry secrets, and sometimes don’t even realise the significance of those secrets. By the time the Garda Cold Case Unit was established five years after John Crerar was convicted, detectives had long known that when the dynamics were right, historic murders were very solvable.

  As they prepared to begin examining over 200 unsolved murders which had occurred since 1980, the Garda Serious Crime Review Team met with cold-case detectives from other jurisdictions. They studied the workings of American police forces, and cold-case police officers from Scotland, England and Wales, among others. They also began to liaise closely with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Authorities in the North had been to the fore in proactively re-investigating unsolved murders from the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Central to the work of rebuilding Northern Ireland in more peaceful times has been the Historical Inquiries Team, which is tasked with investigating 3,269 deaths attributable to ‘the Troubles’ between 1968 and 1998. A number of retired police officers from other jurisdictions are involved in this work too. The PNSI is also actively re-investigating cold-case murders which are not linked to the Troubles. In more peaceful times and with cross-community confidence in the police service, detectives have made significant breakthroughs in a number of unsolved murders in Northern Ireland, and hope to have more successes. One of the most troubling unsolved murders was that of 18-year-old German backpacker Inga-Maria Hauser, who was murdered in Co. Antrim shortly after she got off a ferry from Scotland in 1988. The case had stalled and eventually hit a brick wall, and then in 2005 a full DNA profile from the crime scene was established and the search is now very much on for that man.

  In the Republic, among the many cases the Garda Cold Case Unit would eventually take on were the murder of 56-year-old Grace Livingstone, who was shot dead in her home in Malahide in north Co. Dublin in 1992; the sinister disappearance of Englishman Brooke Pickard in Co. Kerry in 1991; the murder of Nancy Smyth, whose killer tried to hide his crime by setting a fire in Nancy’s home in Kilkenny in 1987; and the shooting dead of Lorcan O’Byrne, who was celebrating his engagement when armed robbers burst into his family home in Dublin in 1981.

  The Garda Cold Case Unit established a liaison with Dr Martina McBride at the State’s Forensic Science Laboratory in the Phoenix Park. Much of the work of the Unit would be the tracing of original crime scene materials for forensic re-examination. They also arranged to avail of various profilers and crime scene interpreters who might study original crime photographs or visit a crime scene and give insights into what might have been going through a killer’s mind. Poring over the original case files would be crucial to establishing which witnesses might still be alive and available. A number of families of murder victims were by now actively seeking out the Cold Case Unit. Some people were calling directly to their offices at Harcourt Square in Dublin. Gardaí knew they had to manage the expectations of people; there were certainly some cases which they might be able to progress, but there would be many that despite their best efforts would probably remain unsolved.

  When it was launched in October 2007, the Cold Case Unit said it was initially going to examine 207 unsolved murders which had occurred since 1980. The year 1980 was chosen simply because they had to start somewhere. The Brian McGrath case was the first success for the Cold
Case Unit, so it might have been thought this would reduce the number of unsolved murders to 206. But such figures are only ever a guide to a situation which is impossible to accurately quantify. For example, what about the cases of missing people where it was quite possible the person had been murdered and their body hidden? What about murders which had never been recognised as such—unexplained deaths where no crime was ever detected but where one couldn’t be ruled out? What about more recent murders which have occurred since 2007 and which have not been solved, and which in time will come under the remit of the Cold Case Unit? The only certainty is that there are hundreds of unsolved murders, hundreds of families seeking justice, hundreds of killers who have quite literally got away with murder. Every killer has a family, has friends, has a social network, perhaps has work colleagues. The more you look at the scale of Irish cold cases, the more you realise there are potentially thousands of people on this island who have direct information or strong suspicions about the identity of killers who have evaded justice for far too long.

  Lorcan O’Byrne and his fiancée were celebrating their engagement with Lorcan’s family and friends when he was fatally shot by an armed raider who burst into the O’Byrne family home at around 11.30 p.m. on Sunday 11 October 1981. The O’Byrne home was directly above the pub they ran—The Anglers Rest—at Knockmaroon, close to Dublin’s Phoenix Park. The two raiders who forced their way into the building were after the pub takings. It’s quite likely they didn’t expect to find over twenty people in the O’Byrne home when they broke in. As well as Lorcan and his fiancée Olive, Lorcan’s parents and two brothers and two sisters were there, and some friends and fellow workers. Lorcan was 25 years old and was a bar manager at the family pub. His parents were planning to retire and let their eldest child take over the business. Lorcan and Olive had been going out for around three years and had only that evening announced that they were getting married. Everyone was absolutely thrilled. Olive was from the country and had been living and working in Dublin for a few years. She was already part of the family. When the couple announced their engagement that Sunday evening, an impromptu party was organised for later that night. Lorcan’s mother made sandwiches and once they got the pub closed early, the family and a number of friends all adjourned upstairs to the sitting room at the back of the building. Lorcan and Olive were sitting on a couch and people were sitting and standing around the room. Lorcan’s brother Ger was down at the stereo on the ground and was acting as the DJ. Everyone was chatting and toasting the bride and groom to be. Lorcan’s parents Bernie and Lar were there, and his sister Anne and his youngest sister Dorothy, who was just 15 years old. There was a wonderful happy and excited atmosphere in the packed room. The chat was all about Lorcan and Olive getting married. And then, from nowhere, a masked man suddenly burst through the sitting room door brandishing a shotgun.

  Meeting Lorcan’s brothers Ger and Niall three decades on, it is the first time they have spoken with a journalist, and the loss of their brother is clear. What is particularly upsetting about Lorcan’s brutal killing is that his fiancée Olive and his parents and two sisters all saw it happen. Niall O’Byrne didn’t see his brother being fatally wounded because he himself was being attacked elsewhere in the house by the second raider, who had forced his way in the front door. But Ger was in the sitting room. He saw it all. “I was down on my hands and knees at the stereo changing an album,” he recalls vividly.

  Lorcan was sitting on the right-hand side as you come in the door, and Olive was sitting beside him. There were between fifteen and twenty people in the room. There was music on, not too loud. It happened so fast. My back was to the door and I heard shouting and roaring and I looked up and I saw someone with a balaclava on and holding a shotgun and roaring at us. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Lorcan stood up to see what was going on. He had his back to the door and as he turned around the shotgun went off and there was a big flash and a cloud of smoke everywhere and Lorcan fell to the ground. Then I could see blood everywhere.

  The attack seemed so surreal, so unreal, that for a split-second some people thought it was some type of prank. But once they saw Lorcan on the ground the horror hit home. Just moments earlier everyone had been celebrating, chatting, laughing. Now Lorcan was lying on the ground having taken the full blast of the shotgun in the chest. Olive was by his side. Everyone started screaming. Ger and one or two others were the first to react and they grappled with the barrel of the gun as the masked man started to back out of the room.

  We were trying to get the shotgun from him. He was very fit and very strong. I clearly remember he was pulling backwards trying to get out of the room. Once the shot went off he was trying to get out of the room as quickly as possible. We were pulling the barrel of the shotgun and we didn’t know if he had a second cartridge in it. Someone tried to catch him in the door but he got out the door, but the shotgun was caught in the jamb of the door. I still remember pulling the barrel as the gun went up and down in the jamb of the doorframe. And then he was gone. And Lorcan was lying there.

  What is particularly galling for the O’Byrne family is that, although the gunman’s accomplice was later caught and jailed for six years, the man who fired the shotgun, the man who took one life and tore so many other lives apart, is still free. While the accomplice confessed to his part in the attempted robbery and killing, the man who brought a loaded shotgun to the scene, and who fired it directly at Lorcan, never owned up. The fact that one other person had been brought to justice meant very little to the O’Byrne family. That person wasn’t the person who fired point-blank at Lorcan, he wasn’t the person who took away the life of a son, brother, and fiancé. When the Garda Cold Case Unit was set up in late 2007, the O’Byrne family contacted the Garda Commissioner and asked that Lorcan’s case be re-investigated. The family believed there was enough evidence to warrant a full review of the case. The Cold Case Unit examines historic murder files, looking for angles that might benefit from a fresh analysis. This includes considering advances in forensic science which can link a killer to a crime scene, and revisiting witnesses who may be able to shed new light. There might also be witnesses who hadn’t come forward before. The murder of Lorcan O’Byrne seemed like a case of an attempted robbery which had spiralled rapidly into murder. Detectives believed it was very likely the killing had been spoken about at length in the criminal world. The more it was spoken about, the more new witnesses might come forward. And there was already a lot to go on. Cold-case detectives read in the file that the murder weapon had been located, the getaway car had been found, and one of the two members of the gang had been successfully prosecuted back in the early 80s. Gardaí took time to study the file in detail and then came back to the O’Byrnes saying yes, they would indeed carry out a full cold-case review to try and catch the man who shot Lorcan O’Byrne.

  The other member of the two-man gang which broke into The Anglers Rest that night in October 1981 was John Meredith, a 32-year-old criminal from Ballyfermot who at the time was living at Sillogue Road in Ballymun. Meredith’s role that night was very violent, but he didn’t carry the loaded shotgun; instead he used his hands to drag Niall O’Byrne by the hair through a number of rooms apparently in a search for the pub’s cash box. Meanwhile Meredith’s accomplice, who had entered the front door first, had gone on ahead to the sitting room where he shot Lorcan. The two raiders fled the scene empty-handed but the massive Garda investigation which followed saw John Meredith being identified as a suspect within days. Less than two weeks after the murder of Lorcan O’Byrne, Meredith was charged with the crime. In February 1982, just four months after the killing, Meredith pleaded guilty to manslaughter and this plea was accepted by the State. He was jailed for six years, and in later life he wrote to the O’Byrne family seeking forgiveness for his part in the killing. The O’Byrne family did not respond to his letters; they wanted nothing to do with him. In late 2007 John Meredith took his own life.

  From the admissions of John Meredith a
bout his own part in the raid, and the recovery of the murder weapon and the getaway vehicle, Gardaí had a good deal of information from very early on in the case. It would seem that while the attempted robbery had been ill-thought-out on the night in question, some degree of planning had gone into targeting the pub’s takings. Meredith and his accomplice had been watching the O’Byrnes. It’s most likely both men had been in the pub in previous weeks under the guise of being customers, but were secretly watching the movement of cash, and watching the movement of Bernie and Lar O’Byrne and the bar staff. Certainly Meredith would later tell Gardaí that he had watched Bernie O’Byrne bring cash to a bank in Ballyfermot and he knew that she drove a Renault. He and his accomplice had discussed trying to snatch the cash another time that Bernie might be walking from the pub to her car to make the journey to the bank.

  Monday was normally the day that Bernie and Lar would go to the bank with the pub takings. They usually went to the Bank of Ireland on Camden Street, but would also sometimes go to the Ulster Bank in Walkinstown, and to a bank in Ballyfermot. Meredith and his partner may have originally intended to hold up the O’Byrnes on the Monday as they went to the bank, but for some reason decided to break into the O’Byrne home instead the night before. When later arrested, Meredith claimed that he and the gunman had hatched a plot about two weeks before the attack to rob the takings of The Anglers Rest. For some reason they decided to strike that Sunday night, but they apparently failed to carry out any surveillance of the pub and living quarters that evening, because until they had actually broken in, they seemed oblivious to the fact that there were around twenty people still inside. And this is despite the fact that there would have been some cars parked outside the premises.