The Cold Case Files Page 5
The witness did not know Nancy Smyth, but from a distance back on the other side of the wide street he was able to tell it was an elderly lady. She began shouting at the man, who was standing on the footpath outside her house. Across the road the witness stopped to observe fully what was going on. He would later tell detectives that the woman was shouting angrily at the man on the path, who began shouting back at her. From the animated tones, the witness heard the woman make some reference to a sister of the man’s. The man then said something to the effect that he was going, and the witness began to walk on himself on the other side of the road. When the witness looked back again a short time later the woman had gone back into her house, and the man had walked away to the end railings at the front of Nancy’s bungalow. The witness presumed he was witnessing an argument between two people who knew each other and he continued on his journey. A short time later he was at the end of Wolfe Tone Street and onto John’s Green and got a lift home from there. It was only when he heard the next day about the murder of a woman in her bungalow at Wolfe Tone Street that he realised the potential significance of what he had witnessed and he made a detailed statement to Detective Gardaí Jim Ryan and Michael Delaney.
The man who the witness saw arguing with Nancy Smyth continues to be of great significance to Garda enquiries. It is quite possible that Nancy knew the person she was arguing with, but perhaps not very well. Nancy was well known in the area, and her late husband Dick had many acquaintances through his interest in keeping pigeons. Ever since the Garda Cold Case Unit re-investigated this case in recent years a lot of its attention has been focused on the man who was seen both banging on Nancy’s window and arguing with her at the front of her house just a few hours before her body was discovered inside.
Nancy’s body was found shortly after 5.10 a.m. after a passing night security worker spotted smoke coming from Nancy’s house and raised the alarm. Members of Kilkenny Fire Service all lived within a few hundred yards of the fire station at Gaol Road and, when they were awoken by their bleepers, they raced to the station. Their fire tender then travelled at speed through the quiet streets and crossed the River Nore to the eastern side of the city, pulling to a halt outside Nancy’s home on Wolfe Tone Street. Fire officers Tony Lacey and Martin Cleere put on breathing apparatuses and went to the front door of the smoke-filled house. Together with Garda Pat Starr, who had already arrived at the scene, the firemen used a sledgehammer to break open the door.
Tony and Martin went into the house, and soon found themselves in a room where there was a sofa on fire. Small flames were coming out of the arm of the sofa but the fire itself was almost burnt out. However, the smoke throughout the house was intense, and visibility was practically nil. Conscious that there might be someone who had been overcome by fumes while sleeping, Tony Lacey felt his way to a bedroom at the end of the bungalow. Before he had entered the house he had noticed that the front window of this room was ajar. He did a full search of the bedroom but didn’t find anyone in there. Meanwhile Martin Cleere had made his way to the other bedroom at the far side of the bungalow to check there, but there was no occupant of that bedroom either. Tony Lacey was now back in the room containing the burning couch. He moved the couch slightly and that’s when he saw Nancy’s body. She was lying on her back parallel with the couch and fireplace. The smoke was so thick in this room that Tony couldn’t tell if he had discovered the body of a man or a woman. He could just tell it was an adult.
All these years later, Tony’s memories of the early hours of that morning are vivid.
When I found Nancy’s body I shouted to Martin and it was when we carried the body outside of the house that we saw it actually was Nancy. We knew that it was her home that we were going into that night. Her bungalow was quite unique on Wolfe Tone Street. I remember the intense smoke and the heat of the smoke when we went into Nancy’s home. I got the impression that the fire had been burning for a couple of hours and had burned itself out due to lack of oxygen. I actually knew Nancy to see and her husband Dick also. They were two real characters in Kilkenny.
Whoever murdered Nancy Smyth hoped that her home would go up in flames and that all evidence of a murder having occurred would be lost. Nancy Smyth was a smoker, and perhaps the killer hoped that Gardaí would assume the fire had been the result of an accident involving a lit cigarette. If the fire had taken hold and Nancy’s body had suffered extensive fire damage, the marks around her neck indicating strangulation would not have been visible. Similarly, the bruising to her head indicating punches or kicks would no longer have been visible either. But for some reason, the fire didn’t accelerate as the killer had planned. The intense heat of the fire and smoke plumes didn’t cause the windows of Nancy’s home to explode, which in turn would have seen the flames grow rather than diminish. One strange thing about the fire was that a bedroom window in another part of the house was partly open, and in different circumstances this might have helped to accelerate the fire. But perhaps the door of this bedroom, which was closed when the fire service arrived, was particularly airtight and kept all outside air away from the fire in the sitting room. Whatever the explanation, the killer failed in his intention to destroy all evidence of the crime.
Even before the fire service arrived at Nancy’s house that morning, Gardaí were at the scene. Once Nancy’s body was removed to St Luke’s Hospital, Gardaí remained at her house, which would eventually become a crime scene. In the immediate aftermath of Nancy’s body being found, it was thought that perhaps her death was indeed an accident. Over the following hours, as neighbours stood around expressing their shock, Gardaí soon started hearing reports of the altercation between Nancy and a man at the front of her home just a few hours before she was murdered. Gardaí contacted State Pathologist John Harbison to ask him to conduct a post-mortem examination.
Members of the Garda Technical Bureau travelled from Dublin to assist in a forensic analysis of Nancy’s house. Detective Sergeant Willie Hogan took photographs of the scene, Detective Garda Séamus Quinn looked for clues as to the source of the fire and Detective Garda Oliver Cloonan dusted Nancy’s property for fingerprints. These officers also attended the post-mortem examination along with local Sergeant Michael Melia.
It was Nancy’s nephew Des Murphy who had to identify her body and the memory is still with him. “It was the day after Nancy was murdered, the afternoon of Saturday 12 September, that I went to the morgue to identify her,” he tells me.
I went in to the morgue with Sergeant Eddie Geraghty. Nancy was married to my Uncle Dick, who had died the year before. After Dick died, Nancy lived alone at Wolfe Tone Street. Nancy and Dick never had children, but they had extended family such as myself and other nephews and nieces. They lived in the house in which Dick and his brother John and three sisters Alice, Mary and Chrissie—my mother—had grown up. John later moved to England, and the three sisters moved out and got married, so it eventually became Dick and Nancy’s home. I will never forget going in to identify Nancy’s body. The entire family hopes that even at this late stage Nancy will get justice and her killer will be caught.
On the afternoon of Saturday 12 September 1987, Dr John Harbison carried out a post-mortem examination on Nancy’s body. He saw that Nancy had suffered burn injuries all along the left side of her body. Her left arm and leg were scorched and blistered, and her back and the left side of her head had also been damaged by the fire. However, Dr Harbison soon established that the burn injuries to Nancy’s body had occurred when she was already dead.
When he studied the back of Nancy’s neck Dr Harbison found an intermittent thin pressure mark. It was a faint bruise which extended for three inches. On the front of her neck he found further evidence of bruising across Nancy’s thyroid cartilage, or Adam’s apple. Dr Harbison also observed a bruise to the side of Nancy’s left eye and another bruise to the right side of her head. As he continued the post-mortem, Dr Harbison found several injuries to Nancy’s thyroid cartilage. The right lower horn of the
cartilage was fractured. Upon further examination the pathologist established that there was no trace of soot in Nancy’s larynx or trachea.
Dr Harbison completed his examination at 7.30 p.m. and travelled to Kilkenny Garda station and took part in a conference chaired by Chief Superintendent Tom Sloyan, accompanied by Superintendent Vincent Duff. The State Pathologist told the assembled Gardaí it was his view that Nancy Smyth had died from asphyxia due to strangulation. The nature of the internal injuries to Nancy’s neck, coupled with the visible bruising to the front and back of her neck, led Dr Harbison to the view that it was more likely Nancy had been manually strangled rather than with a ligature. Dr Harbison further stated that Nancy had also suffered two head injuries which were consistent with being punched or kicked. The death of Nancy Smyth was now officially a murder investigation.
Soon after Nancy’s body had been removed from her home that Friday morning, her dog’s body was also found in the sitting room. The body of the small dog was taken to a vet on the Hebron Road in Kilkenny, and when a post-mortem examination was carried out on the following day, it was established that the dog had died from smoke inhalation. It was a poignant scene to imagine. The faithful dog had stayed beside Nancy as she lay dead on the ground, and as smoke filled the bungalow from the burning sofa beside them, the dog had eventually died.
Just a few hours before Nancy was murdered she had gone out for a social drink. She went into a pub on the eastern side of Kilkenny city at around 9 p.m. and chatted away with staff at the pub and with other customers. The owner of the pub would later recall how Nancy had enjoyed a rum and blackcurrant, and a Paddy whiskey and white lemonade. Ever since her husband of 29 years had passed away in October of the previous year, Nancy was coming to terms with living alone, and she was making the effort to get out of her home and socialise, as she and Dick had done as a couple. Nancy was well known in the locality, she was a Kilkenny woman, though not from the city originally. The youngest of nine children, Nancy had grown up in Castlecomer and her parents had both died when she was very young. Nancy had later moved to Bray in Co. Wicklow and Shankill in south Dublin to get work. She also spent time in England before returning to Co. Kilkenny and settling down for good. She married local man Dick Smyth two days after Christmas Day of 1957. Although they had no children, the couple had many relatives and Dick’s interest in pigeons also opened up a wider social circle in Kilkenny. The couple’s home at Wolfe Tone Street was one of the oldest buildings on the long road which linked the area around the local swimming pool and park with John’s Green and the nearby train station off the Dublin road. The larger part of the historic city was over the River Nore a few minutes’ walk to the west.
The owner of the pub where Nancy socialised on the night of Thursday 10 September later dropped her home. Nancy had still been in the bar at closing time and the owner had offered her a lift. He had seen that Nancy, although not very drunk, was a little merry and he rightly wanted to make sure she got home safely. It was sometime around 12.10 a.m. or 12.20 a.m. when he dropped Nancy home. On the journey Nancy spoke about her late husband and asked after the driver’s family. The man made sure Nancy got in her door and when she was safely inside the hallway he bid her goodnight and went back to his pub to help finish closing up.
It was about half an hour after the pub owner dropped Nancy home and headed on his way that a young man was both seen and heard banging on the window of Nancy’s house. Because a witness also saw Nancy at her front porch remonstrating with this man we know that Nancy was certainly alive as it approached 1 a.m. The expert opinion of the fire service was that the fire in Nancy’s home had been set quite some time before her body was found shortly after 5 a.m., so it is reasonable to assume that Nancy was strangled sometime closer to 1 a.m. than 5 a.m. Nancy was still in her outdoor clothes when her body was found, so she had not had time to change for bed before her killer struck. It would also appear that her killer had pulled the front door shut as he left the house after killing her. When the fire service had later broken down the front door with a sledgehammer to gain entry, the door had given way quickly. This implied that the inside bolt had not been on. The logical conclusion was that the door had been pulled shut by someone going out the front door.
While we can assume that the killer brazenly walked out the front door, how he actually got into the house is still unresolved. It is possible that Nancy still had her front door open after having words with the young man seen banging on her window shortly before 1 a.m. It is also possible that the killer had entered the house through the bedroom window which was slightly ajar. Because Nancy’s home was on a curve in the road and set back from the footpath, with a small garden in front, people living in the nearby houses would not necessarily have seen any activity at the front of Nancy’s home. While the angle of the house ordinarily gave Nancy some privacy, it also inadvertently gave a killer some measure of cover.
Detectives have long sought to establish a clear motive for the murder of 79-year-old Nancy Smyth. Two motives which have still not been ruled out are sexual assault and robbery. Thursday would have been pension day and perhaps the killer wanted to steal Nancy’s money, which she would have collected earlier. Equally, the possibility that Nancy was the intended victim of a sexual assault has also been actively considered by the Garda Cold Case Unit. Looking at all the circumstances of the case, and based on their intelligence, this is a motive which they cannot discount. However, it is also possible that there was no clear motive, and that perhaps the killer simply wanted to cause hurt and inflict pain and he chose Nancy Smyth because she lived alone and was defenceless.
It is the opinion of detectives who carried out the original investigation, and also the opinion of cold-case detectives, that Nancy’s killer was from Kilkenny. Gardaí do not believe the killer lived on Wolfe Tone Street or any of the immediately surrounding streets, but it is felt, however, that the killer had to be from the wider Kilkenny environs. The logic of this theory is that there were no reports of any suspicious vehicles in the area. It is assumed that the killer arrived at Nancy’s house on foot and also left on foot. If he was walking to the safety of his own home after committing the murder it is perhaps less likely that the killer would have headed towards the busier main part of Kilkenny city to the west of the nearby river. It’s more likely the killer stayed in the shadows and walked along quiet streets east of Wolfe Tone Street. Another possibility is that the killer may have returned to the scene to watch the aftermath of the fire, when Gardaí had cordoned off the scene and news had broken in the media of the murder investigation.
As Gardaí began their investigations they considered if the murder might be linked to an incident on the far side of Kilkenny city. On the night of Thursday 10 September, just hours before Nancy was murdered, a woman was attacked in her home by a masked man who stole £5. However, detectives eventually formed the view that the incidents were not linked in any way.
Detectives spoke with a young man who said he had been the person arguing with Nancy outside her home. He initially denied he had been anywhere near Wolfe Tone Street, but later he confirmed he had walked down the street in the early hours of 11 September. He did not live anywhere near Wolfe Tone Street, but said he had been out drinking in a pub earlier that night and was later walking by Nancy’s house and that she had been arguing to herself when he first came up Wolfe Tone Street. The young man said he had then argued with Nancy for up to a half an hour. He said she opened and shut her front door at least three times. His explanation for arguing with Nancy was that if anyone argued with him he would argue back. He confirmed he had stood inside her front gate but he said he did not go into Nancy’s home and that he had no physical contact with her. He confirmed that as he stood outside Nancy’s home he had asked a man who was passing by on the other side of the road for a light for his cigarette. The young man told Gardaí he had later walked home at around 2 a.m. and that he did not meet anyone on his journey home.
The murder of
Nancy Smyth was one of a number of killings of women in the Republic of Ireland in 1987 which would not be solved. The year saw a spike in the number of murders committed in Ireland and it is purely coincidental but somewhat disturbing that a number of women were killed in 1987 and their killers were never brought to justice. The circumstances of each killing was entirely unique, but little did anyone know at the time that all the murderers would get away scot free.
On 1 April 1987 a 76-year-old woman, Lilly Carrick, was beaten to death in a laneway off Gardiner Street in Dublin city. Lilly was a widow and was walking home after missing her bus. Her killer beat her about the head, fracturing her skull. DNA was obtained from the crime scene but Lilly’s murderer has never been brought to justice. As detectives were continuing to investigate this murder, 29-year-old mother-of-two Antoinette Smith vanished from Dublin on 11 July after earlier attending the David Bowie concert in Slane. It would be 3 April of the following year before her body was found buried at Glendoo Mountain near Glencree in Co. Wicklow. It is believed she was the victim of a random killer or killers.
A number of murders as a result of the Troubles also stretched Garda resources in 1987. Mary McGlinchey was shot dead while bathing her two young sons at her home at Muirhevnamore in Dundalk on the evening of 31 January 1987. Mary was the wife of INLA leader Dominic McGlinchey, who was in prison at the time of his wife’s murder. (He himself was shot dead in Drogheda in 1994 and similarly his murder remains unsolved.) Two INLA members were shot dead during an ambush at a hotel in Drogheda on 20 January in what was an internal feud. On 3 May a man disappeared after going to a funeral along the border. His body was found in December buried under the floor of a disused cow shed in Co. Monaghan. And a member of the RUC was also murdered in the Republic of Ireland in 1987. Samuel McClean, who was from Letterkenny and had almost 20 years’ service with the RUC, was shot dead by a two-man gang near his family’s property at Convoy in Co. Donegal on 2 June. Samuel was one of two RUC officers murdered in Co. Donegal whose killers were never brought to justice. (Fellow officer Harold Keys was visiting his girlfriend in the county in January 1989 when they were ambushed and Harold was shot 23 times.)