The Cold Case Files (29 page)

The 1990s witnessed the proliferation of gun murders, most of which would never be solved. The
IRA
and
INLA
continued killing
people with firearms, and criminal gangs, who were mostly based in Dublin, also began to kill more people by shooting them dead. The
IRA
shot dead gang leader Martin Cahill
in Ranelagh in August 1994. Two months after that killing, a colleague of Cahill’s was shot dead in Drimnagh. Earlier that year, loyalist gunmen were responsible for the shooting dead of a
doorman at a Dublin pub. A republican function was being held at the pub and the killers had intended to kill more people but had been challenged by their victim. Dublin had by now become used to
gun murders. In March 1993 a man was shot dead on North King Street on the city’s northside and in October a man was shot dead on the southside as he watched a Halloween bonfire. In July 1992
a man was shot dead at a shop in Darndale, and a hairdresser was killed in an
INLA
shooting at Marino the previous year. The decade had begun with the shooting dead of a man
in west Dublin. None of these crimes has ever been solved.

The mid to latter part of the 1990s saw the situation deteriorate even further. In 1995 men were murdered in Baldoyle, Ballyfermot, Finglas and Tallaght. In June Francis Preston was shot dead as
he reversed his car out of his driveway in Baldoyle by a gunman who made his escape on a bicycle. In August Gerard Connolly was killed when he went to answer the doorbell at his house in
Ballyfermot. He was shot twice when a gunman fired through a glass-panelled door. The month of November 1995 saw four gun murders in three separate incidents. Eric Shorthall was walking in
Ballyfermot when he was shot dead by the pillion passenger on a motorbike. Christopher Delaney was shot at the back door of his home in Finglas. And in the early hours of 24 November 1995
29-year-old Catherine Brennan and 35-year-old Eddie McCabe were shot dead at Cookstown Road in Tallaght.

The double-murder of Catherine Brennan and Eddie McCabe shocked the Irish public and left two families devastated by the loss of a loved one. Catherine was an innocent mother of two who had
taken a lift from Eddie McCabe to the Primo garage near The Square Shopping Centre to get cigarettes. She had only met Eddie just over an hour earlier after she and a friend accepted a lift home
from a nightclub. At 4.08 a.m. Catherine was seen on the garage
CCTV
buying cigarettes. Around twelve minutes later she and Eddie McCabe were shot dead over a mile away at
Cookstown Road.

From an analysis of the crime scene, Gardaí know that Eddie had pulled his car into the side of the road and had got out and walked to the back of the vehicle. Perhaps he had been flagged
down by someone, perhaps he knew who the person was. Given the fact that Eddie got out of his vehicle, it seems that he didn’t sense any danger. Or perhaps he was having an argument with
someone and didn’t realise the imminent danger he was in. Whatever transpired, Eddie was shot twice in quick succession. Firstly, the gunman pointed the gun at Eddie’s chest and fired
at point-blank range. And as Eddie fell backwards onto the side of the road the killer pointed the gun at his head and fired again.

As these events were happening behind the car, Catherine Brennan struggled to open the passenger door of the car. In the previous few seconds she may have looked behind her and seen Eddie being
shot, or she may have been looking ahead but then heard the two gunshots coming from the back of the car. Whatever way it happened, the fear that engulfed Catherine must have been incredible. She
managed to get the car door open but before she could get out of the car and make it to safety the gunman shot her once in the head and she died instantly.

Catherine Brennan was a hard-working single mother who was saving hard to help Santa surprise her children with bikes for Christmas. She worked as a cleaner in Killinarden Community School and
her life revolved around her son and daughter. Her life was as far removed from violence as you could imagine, and her family were left devastated by her savage and unexplained loss.

Eddie McCabe was a married father of four young boys. In an interview on
RTÉ
News in the aftermath of the murder, Eddie’s wife Linda held her children
closely as she described how her husband was a good father. With tears streaming down her face she said there was no reason why anyone could have had a grudge against him, and she urged anyone with
information to speak with Gardaí. As is the case with so many unsolved murders, over the following years few reporters contacted the McCabe family to see how they were coping.

On Friday 1 December 2006, Eddie McCabe’s eldest son, Eddie Junior, was found critically injured in a laneway at Tyrconnell Road in Inchicore. He had been severely beaten, suffering
horrific injuries to his face, in particular to his eyes. He was rushed to hospital and survived for a week before he died on 8 December. Eddie Junior was just ten years old when his father was
murdered in Tallaght in November 1995. He had sat with his heartbroken mother as she gave that interview to
RTÉ
News back then. And just eleven years later he too
became a murder victim, and although Gardaí at Kevin Street continue to pursue his case, Eddie Junior’s killers have not been brought to justice, just like his father’s killer or
killers.

As Gardaí began to investigate the double murder of Catherine Brennan and Eddie McCabe, the following months saw more unsolved gun murders. By the end of 1996 two men had been shot dead
in Dublin city (two separate murders—one at Parnell Street and the other at Ellis Street), and there were also fatal shootings in Finglas and Coolock. Nineteen-ninety-seven saw a lull in such
murders, due in no small part to the Garda response to the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, which saw considerable resources deployed to upset the workings of criminal gangs. However, by 1998
gangs were murdering at will once again. One man was shot dead in Drumcondra and another man was murdered in Stepaside in south Co. Dublin. The murder rate increased even further in 1999 and so too
did the rate of such crimes which would never be solved. There were a number of gun murders in Dublin and one in Dundalk. Indeed Co. Louth had also borne witness to a number of other gun murders in
the 1990s, including the murder of a man who was found shot dead in his car at Collon in 1992. Both Limerick and Cork were also the scenes of gun murders in the 1990s which would never be solved,
and as a new millennium dawned, over time it would become apparent that the rate of such killings would only increase.

Every case is different, and behind every unsolved murder there is a bigger picture and often a story of major efforts to catch the killer. In May 1994 a man from Co. Louth was shot dead at a
biker’s event in Co. Wicklow. The victim was a hard-working, innocent man who was attacked by criminals who were also at the event. The victim died after being shot once in the head. No-one
was ever convicted of the murder. However, substantial work by detectives led to one Dublin man pleading guilty to a charge of possessing the firearm in Co. Wicklow sometime before it was used.
Certainly it can be said that Gardaí ‘failed’ to fully solve the case, but they did unmask one person who was later jailed for handling the murder weapon, and that is a lot more
than often happens in cases of gun murder.

In July 1996 the body of missing man Patrick O’Driscoll was found buried in a shallow grave in woodland at Lotabeg, near Mayfield in Cork. Patrick’s dismembered
body was buried near the base of a sycamore tree. His skull and torso were found in a sports bag and other parts of his body were found nearby. His body was found three weeks after a man who had
been on trial for Patrick’s murder walked free from the Central Criminal Court at the direction of the trial judge. The accused had faced trial for murder even though Patrick’s body
had, at that time, not been found. The accused was also suspected of involvement in the disappearance of two other men—Cathal O’Brien and Kevin Ball—who have not been seen since
April 1994. Cathal O’Brien from Co. Wexford was a 22-year-old socially conscious young man who had befriended a homeless man, Kevin Ball, while working as a volunteer with the Simon
Community. Cathal lived in a flat at Wellington Terrace on the north side of Cork city. Despite extensive searches by Cathal’s family over many years, no trace of either man has been
found.

There are a number of other cases of people who vanished in Cork in the 1990s. One of those is 23-year-old Michelle McCormick, who disappeared from Owenahincha Holiday Park in west Cork in July
1993. When last seen she was wearing black cycling shorts, a black top and flip-flop shoes. Investigations have led Gardaí to fear that Michelle was killed and her body thrown into the sea
at Kinsale Harbour in a bag weighed down with stones. Almost ten years after her disappearance a man was charged with the manslaughter of Michelle McCormick, but the case was later withdrawn and
the man walked free from court.

In many unsolved killings, the belief of Gardaí is that the answer to unlocking the mystery may lie within the local community. In April 2011 the family of Padraic
O’Cofaigh made an appeal on
RTÉ
’s
Crimecall
programme for help to find the person responsible for killing the 18-year-old in an apparent
hit-and-run incident in Co. Meath on 9 June 1996. Padraic had been walking home from a disco which he had attended in the nearby village of Athboy close to the Rathcairn Gaeltacht, when he was hit
by a car on the Dunderry Road. Padraic was found lying on the road at 3.15 a.m. by a couple driving home. As part of the appeal Detective Inspector Alf Martin said there were people who were out
that night who were now fifteen years older and he urged people with information to come forward. He said the case had been reviewed on an ongoing basis and that the Cold Case Unit had given advice
to local detectives. The Garda said that he believed the answer was quite possibly in the local community, and his colleague Garda Aoife King made an appeal in Irish. The focus of the appeal was
very much directed at local people in this part of Co. Meath.

In Galway, detectives continue to investigate the shocking murder of taxi-driver Eileen Costello O’Shaughnessy, who was beaten to death on the night of Sunday 30 November
1997. Eileen was coming towards the end of her shift when her killer struck. It was at 8.15 p.m. that Eileen last checked in with the dispatcher at Galway Taxis. Eileen said she was going to
Claregalway, a town six miles north of Galway on the
N
17 road to Tuam. The dispatcher assumed Eileen had a fare in the taxi. About twenty minutes later the dispatcher tried
to contact Eileen by radio to pick up another fare in Claregalway, but Eileen didn’t answer her radio.

At 11.44 p.m. three men found Eileen’s bloodstained taxi. The silver Toyota Carina was parked oddly in the middle of a car park off the
N
17 road. The car lights
were off and there was no-one inside but the driver’s window was open and the keys were in the ignition. It was soon established that the vehicle had been driven by Eileen Costello
O’Shaughnessy, who was unaccounted for. A major search was immediately undertaken, but it was the next morning before Eileen was found at a muddy boreen near Claregalway. It was clear that
Eileen had been beaten to death in her taxi and her body then left in the laneway before her killer drove the taxi back towards Galway city. Eileen’s murder has been the subject of a number
of cold-case reviews, but her killer has not been brought to justice.

There were many other murders in the 1990s which would not be solved. A 27-year-old woman was beaten to death in an apartment in Dublin city in December 1996. A 21-year-old
woman was stabbed to death at the Grand Canal near Baggot Street in June 1998. Two months previously the body of a man was found in Co. Louth, just a few yards from the Armagh border. The victim,
who was from Belfast, had been stabbed to death. As the new millennium approached, the violence continued when a man was beaten to death in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, in December 1999. The year 2000
would prove that unsolved murders were only going to increase in number as time went on. The body of Kieran Smyth was found in a field near Ashbourne, Co. Meath, in February. His hands and legs had
been tied, his head was covered with heavy tape and he had been shot. Gardaí built up an amount of intelligence about people suspected of involvement in the paramilitary-style murder, but
no-one was charged. In July 2000 Dundalk publican Stephen Connolly was shot dead by a lone gunman. It’s believed Mr Connolly was murdered by renegade members of the
INLA
because he refused to pay them money as part of a protection racket. In August
INLA
member Nicky O’Hare was shot dead in Dundalk. As the year
continued there were also more non-paramilitary related murders. In November 2000 Francis Fitzgerald was shot dead in his flat at Annamoe Terrace, Cabra, in north Dublin. The following month Eddie
Ryan was shot dead at a pub in Limerick city. That murder was one of the first in a feud which would claim many more lives in Limerick throughout the decade. Some of those murders would be solved
and some would not. Indeed, the rest of the decade would see shocking levels of violence.

In December 2000 Sandra Collins disappeared from the village of Killala in Co. Mayo. The 28-year-old had gone to the shop for sausages at 7.45 p.m. but never came home. The
last sighting of Sandra was in a chip-shop later that night, at around 11.15 p.m. Detectives have been trying to establish where Sandra was in the three and a half hours between leaving the shop
and entering the chipper, and it’s believed the answer may be crucial to finding out what happened to her thereafter. Sandra never made it home from the chip-shop and her family and
Gardaí both fear she was murdered and her body hidden. Sandra’s fleece was later found on the ground at the old pier in Killala and the sausages she had bought on the evening she
disappeared were still in her pocket. The water around Killala was thoroughly searched but no trace of Sandra was found, and a working theory is that the fleece may have been planted at the pier by
someone who had attacked Sandra. In 2011 Sandra’s family said they now believed that she had been pregnant at the time of her disappearance.