The Cold Case Files (21 page)

Nine days after Stephen was killed, the terrorist attacks occurred at the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Every other newsworthy story was swept away as much of the world
focused on the unfolding story in the United States. The Garda
Crimeline
programme which had been due to be aired on the night of Tuesday 11 September was put back to the following night.
Gardaí appeared on the rescheduled programme and on the following month’s programme appealing for information on the man who had set the fire. Detective Inspector Séamus Kane
appealed to the man’s partner or mother or father or whoever was close to him to contact them. He also asked the man himself to come forward and explain his actions. A £5,000 reward was
also offered by Crimestoppers for information which would solve the case.

Stephen’s parents Billy and Liz didn’t have a Christmas tree that December. They didn’t do Christmas, they were too distraught. Two Gardaí from Tallaght visited the
family on Christmas Day and brought some toys for Kelly and Gerry. Over the following years a number of Gardaí would provide help and advice to the family and Liz and Billy are grateful to
all of those officers. One detective, Paul Connolly, went around with Liz to all the houses in Rossfield and helped to hand out leaflets appealing for people to come forward with information. In
recent times Stephen’s family have been in contact with detectives John Stack and Tom McManus and Superintendent Eamon Dolan in Tallaght as efforts have continued to try and catch
Stephen’s killer.

Thirteen months to the day that Stephen was killed, Liz gave birth again. “Having Johnathan gave us a reason to get up in the morning,” Liz tells me. “We simply had to get up,
and then we had a Christmas tree that year, in 2002. Jason was born a year later. It was our way of coping and carrying on.” Billy and Liz are together since 1987. Billy is from Clondalkin
and Liz is from Fettercairn. They find strength in each other and in their four remaining children. Billy tells me Stephen is looking down on them all.

On 4 April 2006 a woman in her early thirties was arrested in the Tallaght area by detectives carrying out a cold-case review of Stephen’s killing. The woman was questioned on suspicion of
withholding information. She was subsequently released without charge. Almost a week later, a 45-year-old man was arrested in Ballyfermot and questioned on suspicion of having caused the fire at
Rossfield Avenue which claimed Stephen’s life. Stephen’s family knew a review of the case had been going on, and they clearly remember getting a call shortly after 7 a.m. in April 2006
to say a man had been arrested in connection with the case. All that day the family waited for news, and then that evening came word that the man was being released and a file would be sent to the
DPP
. And so there followed more waiting, this time for weeks. “We were eventually told that there was not enough evidence to bring a case to court,” remembers
Liz. “You think you are getting so close, you think this might be it, that all your questions will be answered, and then it’s taken from under you.”

Until the person who started the fire at the makeshift den is brought to justice, we don’t know what his mindset was that night. Did he know there were children in the den? Why did he set
the fire? Why did he go to the hut the first time, and then return to the hut and start the fire ten minutes later, having apparently left his dog somewhere nearby? Did he later confide in anyone
about what he had done? How many people are there who know more than they are saying?

One question which remains to this day is what happened to the dog which was sighted on the video camera footage. Is it possible that Stephen’s killer later killed the dog and secretly
buried it somewhere to try and hide his own identity?

The Garda investigation also utilised the
V
i
CLAS
(Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System) computer system to assess if the crime had any
similarities with other incidents. All information was fed into the computer to assess if the crime was the work of a pyromaniac. Detectives also arranged for the grainy video footage to be sent to
an internationally renowned company in England to see if it could be enhanced. The advice was that it was not possible to improve the quality, but Stephen’s family believe this is an avenue
which should be revisited as new technologies emerge. Liz has written to the
FBI
to ask if they might be able to assist, pointing out that tapes even from the time of the
assassination of
US
President John F. Kennedy in 1963 have been enhanced in recent years.

Over two years before Stephen died, there was an unrelated horrific arson incident in Tallaght. It was in July 1999 that Sergeant Andrew Callanan was on duty at Tallaght Garda Station when a man
set fire to the public foyer. Sergeant Callanan bravely tried to use a fire extinguisher to stop the man, but he received fatal injuries as a result. A man was jailed for 15 years in July 2001 for
arson, and was later given a concurrent 15-year sentence for the manslaughter of Sergeant Callanan.

Another despicable case of arson caused horrific injuries to a young brother and sister in Moyross in Limerick in September 2006. The four-year-old and six-year-old were in their mother’s
parked car when a group of youths set it alight. Three youths were later jailed for the attack. The two children have since shown remarkable strength and courage in recovering from their ordeal. A
difference between this case and Stephen’s is that, not only did the children in Limerick survive, but those responsible were brought to justice.

Stephen’s death is one of a number of cases of unsolved killings of children to have occurred in Ireland in recent decades. Forty years before Stephen lost his life, a five-year-old
boy—Tommy Powell—was found beaten to death in a disused graveyard at Camden Row, a street located between the old Meath Hospital and Wexford Street in Dublin city. Tommy lived with his
family at Cuffe Street near St Stephen’s Green and had last been seen playing in the area on 20 June 1961. His body was found at the disused St Kevin’s Cemetery the following day.
Despite extensive enquiries at the time Tommy’s killer was never caught.

Ten-year-old Bernadette Connolly was abducted and murdered in Co. Sligo on 17 April 1970. Bernadette was attacked while cycling her bike near her home on a Friday afternoon. Her body was found
112 days later hidden at a bog fifteen miles away on the Roscommon-Sligo border. One of most intensive murder enquiries was undertaken, but Bernadette’s abductor and killer was never
identified. In recent years, her family have asked Garda authorities to conduct another review of this disturbing case.

And then there are the cases of two long-term missing children who vanished in this country in the most baffling of circumstances. Mary Boyle was just six years old, going on seven, when she
vanished from Cashelard near Ballyshannon in Co. Donegal on the afternoon of Friday 18 March 1977. Mary’s case is one of the oldest missing persons cases which still remains open. Another
case which continues to be actively pursued is that of Philip Cairns, who was 13 years old and had only recently started secondary school when he was abducted from the roadside while walking back
to school in Rathfarnham in south Dublin on 23 October 1986. A massive investigation, which continues to this day, has so far failed to find Philip.

Each death or disappearance of a child has deep effects on the entire family. Every case is different, the circumstances of each are unique. One common thread is that while trying to come to
terms with the unexplained loss of a child, parents must keep going for their other children. In time, those children take up the mantle to fight for justice. The failure to catch the people
responsible for causing such pain, the failure to get answers, to get that justice, only adds to this terrible burden.

Back at the Hughes Connors home in Bawnlea, Liz tells me the family suffer Stephen’s loss every single day. “To the general public I just ask anyone with information, no matter how
small, to come forward. If you heard anything or saw anything, even in the aftermath, please come forward. And please don’t assume that the Gardaí know something. If there’s a
chance you have information, please come forward. Every day we are living this, and it is as bad now as it was when Stephen died. Every Christmas, birthday, anniversary.”

Stephen’s sister Kelly says some people must have information about the person responsible. “People must have been talking after it happened. People must know more. Don’t
assume Gardaí know everything. They don’t. They need information.”

If Stephen was alive today he’d be an uncle. Kelly has a little boy—Cillian. Kelly is now in her early twenties and works as a hairdresser. Stephen’s brother Gerry is in his
mid-teens and the two younger brothers who Stephen never got to meet—Johnathan and Jason—are eight and seven. If Stephen was alive today he’d be in his twenties. Who knows what
he’d be working at. From the sounds of it, he could have become a full-time comedian, or maybe he’d be working with animals. Liz shows me an
A
4 sheet of paper
with the heading ‘Fact File’ on which Stephen had recorded his favourite things. His favourite subject in school was
PE
, his favourite
TV
show was
The Simpsons
. He wrote that he had orange hair and blue eyes and was aged 12.

The year after Stephen was killed, a memorial stone was put up on the footpath outside the entrance to the disused driveway where an arsonist struck at Rossfield Avenue on 1 September 2001. The
black marble heart-shaped memorial stone features gold lettering which reads:
Erected In Memory Of Our Most Beautiful And Precious Son, Stephen Hughes Connors, Who Tragically Died Here On 1st
September 2001, Aged 12 Years. From Your Loving Family.
The bottom of the stone features the line
‘How Could I Have Protected You In This Crazy World’
.

The memorial stone is a great comfort to Stephen’s family and is respected and watched over by the local community in Rossfield. Liz tells me she found it difficult at first going back to
the Rossfield estate when they moved away in late 2001. “In the weeks and months after Stephen was killed I couldn’t go back. But I find that I can now, I think it’s because I
have the memorial stone there. I still have friends and family in the area so we do go back, and we keep the stone clean and we lay flowers. Where the stone is, it will always be Stephen’s
place. As long as that plaque is there Stephen will be remembered. It is so upsetting to think of what happened to Stephen at that location, but you can’t think like that. I’ve seen
firemen stop at the stone and kneel at it. Strangers to the area all stop and look at the memorial.”

Tallaght is one of the largest urban areas in the country, with a population of over 100,000 people. Of the murders which have occurred in the area in recent decades, Gardaí have solved
quite a number. These include the shooting of Joseph Cummins in the old village on St Stephen’s Day 2001 and the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl in Killinarden in 1988—the first case
in which
DNA
evidence was used. Detectives have also shown a dogged determination to pursue criminal cases many years after a murder has occurred. This determination saw a
murder charge being brought against a man from Belfast in 1997 for the murder of Garda Patrick Reynolds who was shot dead in Tallaght in 1982. The man was subsequently found not guilty of the
charge by the Special Criminal Court.

There are also a number of murders in which no-one has ever faced trial. The double-murder of Catherine Brennan and Eddie McCabe on 24 November 1995 is one of those unsolved cases. Catherine had
taken a lift with Eddie to the Primo garage near The Square Shopping Centre in the early hours of that Friday morning to buy cigarettes. The
CCTV
footage from the garage
shows that Catherine bought cigarettes at 4.08 a.m. The murders occurred over a kilometre from the garage about 12 minutes later. Eddie was found shot dead on the ground at the back of his car on
Cookstown Road. He had been shot twice. Catherine was found shot dead in the passenger seat. At least eight people, including two women, were later arrested and questioned about the murders, but no
charges were brought. The murders of Catherine and Eddie left two families devastated. Catherine was a 29-year-old mother of two. Eddie was a 35-year-old father of four. The file on the case
remains open at Tallaght Garda station.

The file on the killing of Stephen Hughes Connors is also kept safely at Tallaght station. The original video cassette which recorded the scene near the crime is part of that file. There are a
number of officers still serving in Tallaght who worked on the original case. Other Gardaí more recent to the area know this is a crime which has devastated a community, and they share the
same resolve to never let it rest. But while Gardaí say they remain determined to pursue the person responsible, they need information, they need people to talk.

As I chat with Stephen’s Dad Billy in their back garden in Bawnlea in Jobstown, one of his younger sons comes over to ask him to pump up a tyre on his bike. This is a busy house, a
welcoming home. With one teenage boy and two younger boys still to rear, there are constant sounds of laughter and chatter. The family are well known in the area. Liz runs a crèche at the
nearby Tallaght Leisure Centre. “Before this happened we were just like any other family,” says Liz. “Myself and Billy were both working to try and give our kids a better life. We
were an ordinary family. The first five years after Stephen died I didn’t go out much. If I went for a walk I’d find the quickest way home. I found it difficult to talk to people.
Everyone around knew Stephen and it is a comfort to have friends and neighbours supporting us. Everywhere you go there are memories. That was tough at first, but now I find it
comforting.”

As the family show me more photos of Stephen, Liz smiles. “Stephen really really really loved life. He was so adventurous. He got his red hair from Billy’s side of the family. Our
youngest, Jason, is very like Stephen, the image of him. We talk to Johnathan and Jason a lot about Stephen, he is still part of our family and we tell them they have a big brother up in heaven.
Gerry talks about Stephen all the time. Stephen’s death had a huge effect on both Gerry and Kelly.”