Sunday World Site - Investigations

April Collins

FORMER gangster's moll April Collins has moved back into Dundon heartland as she prepares to give evidence against former members of Murder Inc. Collins has turned State's witness and is preparing to testify against the Dundon brothers, John and Wayne, and their lieutenant Nathan Killeen.

Incredibly, she has told gardai protecting her that she feels safest back in Ballinacurra Weston with her extended family and friends.

The mother of four, who is under 24- hour garda protection, has been housed in the notorious estate, once the Dundon stronghold, in the run-up to two key trials for the murders of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan and businessman Roy Collins later this year.

April - who has three children with another of the Dundon brothers, Ger - is living in a house that was specially renovated for her in a cul-de-sac, just a stone's throw from both John and Wayne's family home. She spends her days visiting her mother Avril, who lives around the corner, and walking her new baby, Princess Tianna, around the streets in her pram.

Our Sunday World team spotted her last week doing just that. Dressed to kill in wedge heel boots, skinny jeans and a leopard-skin hooded jacket, she looked like any other Limerick girl out for a walk with her child. But the 25-year-old is far from ordinary and her bold defiance of a hitman's bullet is an incredible situation for officers trying protect one of Ireland's most valued witnesses.

It is costing in the region of €500,000 a year to protect April, with two armed officers providing around-the-clock security. Whenever she appears in court she is protected by at least six members of the Emergency Response Unit. Her children and relatives have been fitted with alarm devices and a fortune is being spent on monitoring the Dundons and their extended associates in prison for fear that they will try to order a hit on her.

April's evidence has already helped to jail the Dundon brothers for threats to kill and was key in the life sentence for assassin Barry Doyle for the shooting of Geoghegan in November 2008. During Doyle's trial, she said that John Dundon was the person who ordered the killing and that he arranged the gun and the getaway car. He has since been charged with the murder and is due before the Special Criminal Court in the coming months.

Wayne and John's brother-in law Nathan Killeen will appear this week in the court charged with murdering Roy Collins. The trial is due to take place before the end of the year, with April centre stage. The mum agreed to co-operate with gardai after her life was threatened when she dumped Ger Dundon and started a new relationship with Cratloe rapist Thomas O'Neill - the father of Princess Tianna.

Ger, currently serving a sentence for threatening nightclub owner Mark Heffernan, smashed up his cell and brothers John and Wayne feared he would take his own life. They proceeded to threaten April and her mother Avril - a move which sparked a massive split in the once united McCarthy-Dundon gang and led April's gangster dad Jimmy Collins to declare war.

The split marked the moment when Murder Inc imploded and those who had shown a twisted loyalty to the Dundons decided they were no longer going to observe the strict omerta that held the murderous gang together.

Initially April moved out of Limerick as she awaited the first raft of Special Criminal Court trials for the threats and Doyle's murder conviction. However, sources say she insisted she move back to Ballinacurra Weston.

April Collins has lived her entire life in the underbelly of Limerick's worst mob. A daughter of criminal Jimmy Collins and sister of Gareth, she was born into a world of mayhem. April grew up in Ballinacurra and was just 16 when she started a relationship with Ger Dundon and moved in with the family at Hyde Road.

When Ger was jailed in 2011 for threats, she started a relationship with Thomas O'Neill. A Ballinacurra local, he received a 10-year sentence for being the ringleader of a gang rape when he was just 16. It is believed that she and O'Neill have her parents blessing to marry.

Adam Khan Al Kozai

THIS is the man that gardai were searching for during a three-day dig in Dublin this week

The Sunday World can reveal that gardai excavated a site in Coolock in the hope of finding the body of 19-year-old Adam Khan Al Kozai.

The Afghan national was last seen on O'Connell Street on April 25, 2011, and gardai believe he was murdered by a traveller gang. Al Kozai lived in a halfway house in Terenure and is believed to have fallen foul of murderous travellers after starting a relationship with a teenage traveller girl.

Garda commissioner Martin Callinan recently received an anonymous letter with photos of what appeared to be a dead body wrapped in a bloody bedsheet. A letter accompanying the grisly images claimed that the man had been murdered and buried in a traveller encampment at Northern Cross, in Coolock.

Gardai trawled all the people listed as missing in Dublin and determined that the body closely resembled Al Kozai. Last Monday, a dozen gardai arrived at the site with mechanical digging equipment and spent three days there. Despite the exhaustive search, no human remains were found although officers did recover two shotguns and ammunition. There are no plans for further searches although the investigation is ongoing.

The site at Northern Cross was the subject of a joint garda and army search in October 2012 when a pipe bomb factory was recovered. Al Kozai is listed as a missing person on the garda website. He is 6ft 2in tall and has a mole on his left cheek.

null

Ammo for gang hit found at bus stop

THIS IS the lethal cache of 9mm ammunition found beside a crowded bus stop this week. Gardai believe that a gangland assassination could have been prevented after an eagle-eyed member of the public came across a paper bag containing 100 rounds of ammo for a Luger semiautomatic pistol.

Detectives have launched a major investigation after the live rounds were found last Thursday morning. Detectives believe that the bullets could have been in the process of being transported to a local criminal gang when the courier was unexpectedly disturbed on the Jamestown Road, in Finglas, Dublin .

Officers immediately moved to seal off the area in a bid to find the Luger pistol and have described the find as "highly significant". They are currently trawling CCTV to see if they can identify the criminal who was carrying the dangerous haul. The bullets, which were inside a brown paper bag with writing on it, had then been placed inside a white paper bag. They were found on top of a small wall behind a busy bus stop.

One theory being examined is that the courier was walking down the road and may have seen a passing patrol car and panicked, placing the bag on the wall. Once the coast was clear he planned to return to pick up the parcel, but it had already been spotted by an innocent member of the public who had been waiting to get a bus into the city centre.

Stashed

FINGLAS: Street where bullets were found

It is thought that less than 10 minutes had passed between the bullets being stashed and found by the man. The member of the public contacted the Sunday World to tell of his find and said he wanted to highlight how dangerous that Finglas has become. He said he feared that young children could have picked up the bullets and that a serious accident could have happened.

He was especially concerned that a courier could transport bullets in broad daylight when there were scores of people around. The man requested that we hand in the bullets to gardai and we immediately contacted Finglas station, who collected the ammunition.

The haul is now being forensically examined to see if there are any traces of fingerprints or DNA. The man who found the ammunition said he was relieved that lives had been saved and said that if an unscrupulous person had came upon the bullets he could have sold them on the streets for at least €10 a pop. The Luger 9mm pistol has become increasingly popular in gangland in recent years and has been used in several high-profile shootings.

Shot

Innocent young mum Donna Cleary was shot dead with a Luger in 2006, while senior Finglas criminal John Mangan was found with a loaded Luger down his trousers in a pub in Santry in 2007. The Luger 9mm is especially popular among the Limerick gangs, with gardai having seized a number of such weapons over the last decade.

Finglas is one of the busiest areas for gardai in the country and there have been several gangland hits there in recent years. In February 2012, 36-year-old Alan McNally was gunned down in a pub in Finglas village. In July 2010, Colm Owens was gunned down in an industrial estate by the Real IRA.

In February of the same year cousins Mark Noonan and Glenn Murphy were killed in a double assassination at a service station by the Real IRA in a case of mistaken identity. In October 2009, 42-year-old David Thomas was murdered outside another pub in the village.

Some of the most serious criminals in recent times have been from Finglas or operated there, including Eamon 'the Don' Dunne and Martin 'Marlo' Hyland.

Our cold case squad use X-Ray scan to reveal hidden 'grave' in long search for missing Mary Boyle - now we want the gardai to perform a long-awaited search

Andrea Galeano is in a relationship with solicitor Graham Hanlon

Tragedy: Pierre died after plastic surgery

Troubled: Andrea Galeano attends Pierre's inquest

Facebook check-in

It was the honeymoon that turned into a nightmare for tiler Pierre Christian Lawlor.

The Irishman had travelled to South America to celebrate his wedding to beautiful Andrea Galeano (29) with whom he had a baby son Zachary, who was just eight months old.

A week later, Pierre was dead, having suffered a massive heart attack hours after undergoing plastic surgery. His wife claimed he had taken cocaine in the days before the operation.

Lawlor (33), met Andrea over the internet in early 2006, and the pair were married in December that year.

They had a turbulent relationship, described by Pierre’s father Tom as “troubled” in a Garda interview after Pierre’s death which was seen by this reporter. Officers had been called to the Stepaside home in south Dublin which Pierre had rented, after a number of rows, he said.

Andrea admitted there were problems, in her own interview to gardai after Pierre’s death. “We had some difficulties [but] we loved each other and always made up,” she said.

Today the Sunday World can reveal the marriage cert that shows stunning Andrea was married before – despite initially denying that last week.

Officials in Colombia said her former marriage has full legal status and there is no record of a divorce.

Andrea Galeano was married before in 2002 to a named Colombian man in Bucaramanga, in the Colombian state of Santander some eight hours north of Bogota, the certificate shows.

The office of marriage registrations in Bucaramanga say the marriage was fully registered there.

Galeano initially denied at the inquest that she had been married before. Then, on the second day of the inquest, she admitted she had, but that it had had no legal status.

Our probe shows the marriage has full legal status in Colombia. The marriage registration official also said the pair were still married and that there was no record of a divorce.

If it is proven Galeano had never divorced, it leaves the Lawlor family open to take a civil case against her on grounds of bigamy and fraud.

The inquest into the death of Lawlor, from Belarmine Place in Stepaside, Co. Dublin, recorded an open verdict on Thursday of last week. He died from a massive coronary on the operating table some hours after the six-hour surgery.

The open verdict finding of the inquest is the same conclusion as the initial inquest – a result which had been successfully overturned on appeal by the family. However, a source close to Lawlor’s family – his father Tom, sister Claudine and mother Margaret – said they were “pleased” with the inquest despite the same finding being recorded.

“They got the marriage cert out there in the inquest. They knew for a while that she had been married before, but they couldn’t bring it out till the court date came up,” said a source.

“They were annoyed that the media was just going with the line that Pierre had taken cocaine and that’s that. Now they’re happy this is out there about the marriage and things are not all they seem.”

Galeano, who is Venezuelan-born, but was raised in Colombia, was in a relationship with her solicitor, who attended a February inquest into the death of Lawlor, our photos show.

Our snaps show her with solicitor Graham Hanlon on holidays in a photo from Hanlon’s Facebook account posted in January. The pair also had a getaway break in Monaco in late May, according to a post on Galeano’s Facebook account.

The “closeness” of the relationship between the solicitor and his client was raised by the solicitor for the Lawlor family at the February inquest. Hanlon did not attend or accompany Galeano to the inquest this week.

It was some nine months into their marriage when Pierre and Andrea travelled to Colombia in August 2007. They planned to have their belated honeymoon in Cartagena, Colombian’s Caribbean old fort city.

The purpose of the trip was also for Pierre to get plastic surgery, according to Andrea.

Galeano, who called herself a housewife, said the pair stayed with her parents in their apartment in the capital, Bogota.

While there, Pierre investigated getting plastic surgery. They came across the clinic of Ricardo Lancheros.

The pair attended the clinic for a consultation a few days later in the plush clinic run by Lancheros, a celebrity surgeon to the stars. The plastic surgery that Pierre wanted was discussed, including liposuction and work on his eyelids. The price agreed on was €3,500.

It is understood it was explained to Pierre that he could not consume alcohol or drugs in the 48 hours before the surgery, and he signed a legal document to that effect. It is believed his wife interpreted this to the Dublin man, who did not speak Spanish.

Pierre and Andrea then left the clinic “very content” after the consultation, she said in the police interview.

Afterwards, however, Pierre was “nervous” about the surgery.

In the initial inquest Andrea said that Pierre had undergone the surgery in Colombia because he believed he “was fat and ugly and had big ears”.

The weekend before the surgery, Andrea claimed at the first inquest that he drank beers and consumed cocaine in an Irish bar in Bogota.

But in the second inquest, after the family had successfully overturned the first inquest, she said she hadn’t actually seen him take cocaine.

Andrea said he had also taken the drug the following Sunday morning in the bedroom of her family’s apartment. She told him not to, but he reproached her, saying it was “his holiday”, for which he had paid.

There is no mention of Pierre having taken cocaine or any other substances that weekend in Andrea’s testimony to the Colombian police after his death, the police report shows.

On the Monday morning he went into the operating theatre at about 9.30am. Andrea returned to the clinic at 4.30pm that afternoon, when Pierre was due to leave the theatre for recuperation after the six-hour surgery.

However, at 7pm that night, Lancheros phoned her – it is not clear where Andrea went in the meantime.

“There were problems,” Andrea said. “He was doing everything possible, but the surgeon said that the chances were limited.

Pierre had developed complications while he was being resuscitated after the six-hour surgery shortly after 4pm. Lancheros spent some three hours trying to revive him.

He had suffered a massive coronary, an Irish postmortem later revealed.

A row later ensued between the Lawlor family and Andrea, according to a source close to the family, after Andrea made a bid to have Pierre cremated in Colombia.

“She told the family that it was Pierre’s wishes that he be cremated if he ever died,” our source said.

The family, who had set a funeral date, were furious and intervened. They asked for Pierre’s remains to be repatriated to Dublin.

The funeral date they had planned had to be delayed and, following a postmortem, the funeral took place on Saturday, September 29, 2007, and the cremation the Monday after.

Before the funeral, the condition of Pierre’s remains proved an issue for his father Tom, who first had to identify him. It took two visits, the family source said, owing to the extensive cosmetic surgery. “He didn’t recognise him,” our source said.

The Lawlor family and Andrea haven’t spoken since Pierre’s death. They have also had no contact with Pierre’s son Zachary, now six.

For the Lawlor family, many questions remain regarding Pierre’s death. “All they know is that Pierre went away on a holiday and never came back,” our source said.

Lancheros, who regularly appears on chat shows to talk about plastic surgery, refused to give evidence this week over Pierre’s death.

He also told the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs that he could not discuss the case due to patient confidentiality. Our source said both Pierre’s father Tom and sister Claudine had spoken to Lancheros.

A toxicology report by the Colombian authorities has never surfaced.

Colombian prosecutors have said their investigation into the death of Lawlor has been archived with no particular conclusion, but could be re-opened on request by the Irish authorities through proper diplomatic channels.

null

MEDICAL evidence suggests that a crucial 90 minutes elapsed before Katy French was rushed to hospital on the night she collapsed in the home of Kieron 'the Wolf' Ducie.

At her inquest today Ducie and his then girlfriend Ann Corcoran gave evidence that they got their times mixed up in original statements. They deny any time was wasted in getting the model help.

But sources told the Sunday World that their version of events about the model's collapse at their home didn't add up with her medical condition, body temperature, and blood and urine tests.

It is understood that it took a medical team almost 20 minutes to restart her heart after she arrived at the hospital and that she had six cardiac arrests before they could stabilise her in critical condition on life support.

Her body temperature was surprisingly low and sources close to the medical team say it had dropped to 35 degrees as they battled to save her. Both Ducie - a €40,000-per-year truck driver - and Corcoran insisted that Katy had fallen out of bed and had a seizure around 8am, but she only arrived at the hospital after 10am.

A later Garda investigation, headed by Superintendent Michael Devine, estimated that she should have arrived by 8.30am. In the weeks that followed her death officers searched her Citywest apartment where they found a variety of slimming pills, steroids and anti-obesity medication.

This week, both Ducie and Corcoran pleaded guilty to drug offences from the weekend she collapsed at their home. They admitted they procured another man - Russell Memery - to possess cocaine for the purpose of sale or supply to another. However, Katy's inquest heard that she had taken nothing like the €200 amount of cocaine that was bought from Memery, and that her blood alcohol level was less than 10 milligrams, which is negligible.

At Trim Circuit Court, Judge Leonie Reynolds was told a second charge would not be pursued against the pair - that they intentionally or recklessly engaged in conduct related to the supply of cocaine to Ms French and failed to get medical assistance in a timely fashion, which created a substantial risk of death or serious harm to another.

The decision to drop the charge was taken by the DPP. It is understood that evidence the State had against the pair was largely circumstantial and medics could not definitively say whether her life could have been saved had she been presented at the hospital any earlier.

It is understood that both Ducie and Corcoran complicated the medical response as they continued to insist to doctors when they brought her to hospital that they had not seen Katy taking cocaine - at one point Ducie insisted that he abhorred drugs.

Both said that she had drank two bottles of champagne, plus vodka and Red Bull before retiring to a downstairs bedroom at their home in Lambertstown Manor, Kilmessan, County Meath. Yet there was little more than a glass of alcohol in her bloodstream.

They claimed they heard a loud bang some time after 8am and found Katy having a seizure on the floor. They said they carried her to the back of their jeep and rushed her straight to hospital. According to their version of events, the journey would have taken nearly two hours and 15 minutes - yet Kilmessan is just a quarter of an hour from the A&E.

Even after her death, they continued their lies about the cocaine that they finally admitted they helped procure for her. They insisted they didn't see her taking cocaine or know that she was a drug user.

One member of the medical team who dealt with the pair in Navan hospital told Gardai that she had accompanied Ann to the jeep to collect Katy's handbag and was surprised to find that it was so clean considering it had transported someone as ill as the model to the A&E. There was no sign of vomit or anything else in the spotless car, despite the fact that they had been told that she had a seizure in the back of the jeep.

She had a number of cardiac arrests there after the initial heart resuscitation with CPR. She was then pumped with adrenalin and other medication to start her heart again. As they were trying to stabilise her, medics have told Gardai they were getting different stories from Ducie and Corcoran. One was that she had a seizure and was put to bed, but got up and continued to party.

A second untruth that hampered medics was that Katy drank a load of champagne and Red Bull and that she had a seizure. Nurses and doctors returned to Ducie and Corconan a number of times in an effort to build up an accurate history for admission. Both said they had not seen her taking anything, but she had gone to the toilet a lot during the night. Corcoran at one point told doctors that Katy had a drug problem.

However, anaesthetists, nurses and physicians believed that the patient had a longer period of cardiac arrest than what they were being told and eventually urine analysis confirmed that she had both cocaine in her system.

John French, Katy's father, made an official complaint to Gardai shortly before she was officially pronounced dead after doctors had expressed their concerns to him. That investigation lasted five years and involved interviews with some of the nation's best-known socialites.

Legal action: Noel Callan

Sick: Simon Brody beat woman in her 80's to death

Frank Daly

John Cullen

John Shaw

Thomas Murray

Two gardai were shot dead in Roscommon in 1980

Shot: Garda John Morely

Shot: Garda Henry Byrne

Colm O'Shea

A RULING by European judges could pave the way to freedom for dozens of killers serving life sentences in Ireland.

Europe’s top human rights court ruled this week that whole life sentences handed to three murderers in the UK amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment because they had no hope of release.

Many of Ireland’s longest-serving prisoners, locked up in the 1970s and ’80s, could now take their case to Europe by making the same argument.

In some cases, like that of killer John Shaw, their crimes have been considered too horrific to allow their release.

Although Ireland does not have ‘whole life’ sentences like the UK, it has effectively done so in the case on Geoffrey Evans, who died without ever regaining his freedom.

Others, like Thomas Murray, who killed a woman after being given temporary release from jail, are too dangerous and unpredictable ever to be freed again.

Controversy has previously surrounded the release of convicted murderers such as Sean Courtney and Malcolm MacArthur.

A row also broke out over the recent decision to transfer killer Michael Doohan to a house outside the walls of Castlerea prison.

Ireland’s prisons have never had as many killers serving life sentences. With more than 300 lifers behind bars and over another 70 released on licence, they make up almost 10 per cent of the country’s jail population.

They include several men caught up in gangland feuds. However, not all of the |long-serving prisoners are actual ‘lifers’.

There are four men serving 40-year jail terms after their death sentences for killing a garda officer were commuted.

These are Ireland’s longest serving inmates who are still behind bars:

JOHN SHAW (38 years inside)

Shaw was one half of a notorious duo who tortured and murdered two women.

Evidence was given of how they had raped and tortured their victims, sparking a nationwide manhunt for the dangerous predators.

His partner in crime Geoffrey Evans died in hospital in May 2012, never having regained consciousness after an operation. Shaw, who was jailed for murder in February 1975, remains in custody in Castlerea Prison.

It emerged during the investigation they had planned to kill a woman every week after moving to Ireland from the UK.

COLM O’SHEA and Patrick McCANN (32 years)

Although not ‘lifers’, Colm O’Shea and Patrick McCann are two of the country’s longest-serving prisoners after their death sentences were commuted to a 40-year sentence.

The pair, members of republican offshoot Saor Eire, were jailed for the murder of two gardai during a bank raid.

Garda Henry Byrne and Detective Garda John Morley were shot dead after the raid at Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon, in July 1980.

Former President Patrick Hillery commuted the death sentence in 1981 to penal servitude of 40 years.

Last year a High Court challenge by O’Shea against his continued detention was turned down. In his judgment, Mr Justice John Edwards dismissed O’Shea’s bid to be released and found that he is lawfully detained.

MICHAEL HOLOHAN (32 years)

Holohan (59), who was jailed in February 1981 for the murder of a female neighbour, is now held in the Midlands Prison.

After a heavy boozing session in Galway city in June 1980, he broke into the woman’s home searching for cash.

Although she told him where to get money, he stabbed her with a kitchen knife, hit her on the head and then strangled her.

He had previously been convicted for knocking down two people with a stolen car, indecently assaulting a foreign student and assaulting another woman.

THOMAS MURRAY (32 years)

Murray (49), was originally jailed in September 1981 when he was just 17 after he stabbed an elderly man to death in Ballygar, County Roscommon.

On Valentine’s Day 2000, he was given day release from Castlerea Prison where he had been serving a life sentence.

He returned to Ballygar where he attacked an 80-year-old retired school teacher, beating her to death with a lump hammer.

On previous day release he had been convicted of indecent exposure and was returned to prison. He is now detained in the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise.

JOHN CULLEN (30 years)

Cullen (62), was jailed in November 1983 for the murders of three women after he set fire to their Dublin home.

The violent career criminal and pimp was convicted of killing Dolores Lynch, her mum Kathleen and elderly aunt Hannah.

After he was jailed, Cullen’s ex-girlfriend Lyn Madden wrote a best-selling book called ‘Lyn: A Story of Prostitution’, about her horrific experiences at his hands.

She told how he grinned with delight after setting the fatal blaze. He’s now detained in the Training Unit at Mountjoy.

FRANK DALY (29 years)

Daly (64), jailed in November 1984, is now held in Castlerea.

He was convicted of the murder of Denise Cox in a brutal stabbing outside a pub in Ennis in August 1983, as the 20-year-old waited for friends.

He is one the prisoners considered likely to be allowed to live in a newly-refurbished house just outside the walls of Castelrea Prison.

IAN WATSON (29 years)

Watson (59), was jailed in November 1984 for the murder of a 12-year-old boy in Arklow, County Wicklow.

He pleaded guilty and, as was the practice at the time, none of the evidence surrounding the circumstances of the killing was heard in open court.

Shortly after his arrest in April that year gardai struggled to prevent a mob from getting at him as they transferred him from Arklow District Court.

He was punched several times as a crowd surged towards the garda car being used to transport him.

SIMON BRIODY (28 years)

Longford man Briody (49), was jailed for life in 1985 after he savagely beat a woman to death in the house where she lived alone in the town.

Evidence was heard how he asked one man for 50 pence because he was broke. Later the same day he arrived in a pub where his pockets were stuffed with money.

Later he made a confession to gardai after the body of the widow in her 80s was found in her kitchen.

MICHAEL McHUGH and NOEL CALLAN (28 years)

In 1985, Michael McHugh from Crossmaglen, Co. Armagh and co-accused, Noel Callan from Culloville were found guilty of the murder of Garda Sergeant Patrick Morrissey, who was shot as he gave chase following a post-office raid in Ardee, Co. Louth.

Originally sentenced to death, both men later had their sentences commuted to 40 years without remission.

Recently Callan brought a legal action challenging his continued detention. It is due to be heard by the Supreme Court this year. McHugh was blamed as the shooter.

BRIAN FORTUNE (32 years)

Fortune was jailed in April 1986 for the double murder of Margaret Nolan and her daughter Anne in Kilbride, Co. Wicklow in 1985.

Margaret Nolan had once employed Fortune, who is originally from Wicklow.

The body of Anne Nolan was found beaten and strangled in the pantry of her house while the body of her mother was discovered in the sitting room. Both had been strangled.

Details of the horrific crime were never heard in open court and at the time of Fortune’s sentencing in 1986 his defence counsel asked the judge to spare the Nolan family from hearing the facts, saying Fortune “is anxious not to cause further anxiety”.

Changed his story: Kieron Ducie rang a drug dealer before ringing 999

Party girl: tragic Katy French lived a wild life

Ducie's home in Kilmessan

Grim scenes: Katy's funeral

Grieving: Katy's mother, father and sister at memorial mass

KIERON ‘the Wolf’ Ducie is still lying through his teeth about the night Katy French died, a Sunday World investigation reveals today. The social climber was branded a “liar” by the French family when he changed his story again this week.

He told the Coroners Court he was so drunk on vodka that he cannot remember the timings of when he found the model dying on the floor of his home.

He hoped his new story would explain away the 90 missing minutes during which Katy’s family believe she could have been saved.

But today, the Sunday World tracked down a businessman who admitted partying hard with the Wolf and two unidentified women the night Katy died.

For the first time, we can reveal how Joe Hand told gardai that Ducie was taking cocaine himself before he drove home to Kilmessan where Katy and his lover Ann Corcoran were waiting.

Hand also told cops days after the tragedy that Ducie was “sober” when he went home – directly contradicting the Wolf’s evidence to this week’s inquest.

The revelations will lead to further questions as to why charges of not getting the model medical help quickly enough were dropped.

Hand was shocked to be tracked down by the Sunday World, six years after having a sordid drink-and-sex party at his apartment with the Wolf and two aspiring models.

“I don’t do business with him anymore, I don’t socialise with him, I see him out occasionally, but I don’t want anything to do with him or any of what happened,” Hand told the Sunday World.

But speaking at his company in Dublin’s Malahide this week, he insisted: “I stand over my statement to the gardai.”

Today the Sunday World reveals for the first time exactly what Ducie was doing in the hours before he ended up driving Katy French to A&E in Navan General Hospital Co Meath on Sunday December 2, 2007.

Recycling boss Hand told detectives he’d gone clubbing with Ducie in Dublin’s trendy Cocoon and Lillies nightclubs, before heading back to his one-bed apartment in Swords with two women they’d picked up, who he knew only by first names.

He said one was an aspiring model who Ducie nicknamed “my nursie”.

In a damning statement, Hand said he saw Ducie – who always insisted that he abhors drugs and never took coke himself – lining up white lines at the party.

“I saw Kieron dividing out some lines of cocaine on the table with some sort of card,” he told cops during a formal interview.

“It was a plastic bag, I don’t know what size it was. When he did the lines on the table there was still some left in the bag. R*** and Kieron definitely took some of these lines by using a rolled up note of some sort, I can’t say if the other girl took any, I wasn’t paying any particular attention. I didn’t take any line, never taken any. I’m not into it at all.”

Hand told the Sunday World he has never been in trouble with the law and had nothing to do with drugs that night.

“I have no criminal convictions, I have two penalty points, which I got because I didn’t realise I was speeding. I had nothing to do with any of this and I don’t want any more to do with it. I don’t remember what happened that night. It was a long time ago.”

Asked if he was he standing over the claims he’d made to detectives after Katy’s death, the Englishman stated “Yes”.

The company director, who specializes in scrapping hard drives and obsolete IT systems, got to know 43-year-old Ducie through the scrap metal Ducie collected from him.

The pair went clubbing the night Katy died and Ducie picked Joe up in his navy Landcruiser, which he parked on the outskirts of the city.

They got a taxi to Cocoon nightclub, and went on to Lillies, sharing a 70cl bottle Absolut Vodka mixed with Red Bull or Lucozade and hooked up with the women.

Hand gave Ducie the key to his apartment and the Wolf went back ahead of him with the two girls. Hand followed later. “After some time Kieron disappeared with the girl to my bedroom,” Hand told gardai.

“I assume he went for a sh*g. I took to the couch and drifted in and out of sleep.

“At some stage I heard Kieron get up and as he went out the door I think he made reference to being ‘back in a minute’. … When he didn’t come back I texted or called him. I asked him was he gone.” Ducie texted back: “Gone. Enjoy.” Hand admitted:

“I took it that if I wanted to try her, he (Ducie) had no problem.” Later the girl arrived back from the bedroom into the sitting room, asking where Ducie was gone.

“She was not impressed,” Hand said. “Since I’ve been hanging around with Kieron I’ve known him to be a womaniser. He considers himself a ladies’ man.”

In his own original statement – which he changed this week – Ducie claimed he got home at 6.30am – getting a taxi to his car and driving home to Kilmessan, a round trip of 56.48km, which should have taken about an hour and a quarter.

He said he found Katy convulsing on the floor at 8.15am. However, he only brought her through the A&E doors of Navan hospital after 10am, having phoned drug dealer Russell Memery before dialling 999 to ask him “what was in the coke?”

In his self-serving revision of events this week, Ducie said he’d taken Katy straight to hospital as soon as she’d got sick, and could not remember any of the timings as he was drunk.

He said he could no longer be certain what time he got home. But our investigations show that phone records indicate he left Swords around 5.30am, the time he texted Hand. Other calls to both Katy and Corcoran were also made around this time.

The Sunday World also learned that Hand told gardai Ducie asked him to lie in his statement. He admitted lying about the girls, as he didn’t want to drop his pal in it “for playing away from home”.

The Wolf’s pal also said in one statement he never saw Ducie taking cocaine, before later admitting that he had.

Ducie and Corcoran received a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence for arranging the drug deal for Katy. Dealer Russell Memery also received a suspended sentence. There are no further charges likely in the case.

Coroner John Lacy returned an open verdict on the model’s death, which was caused by oxygen starvation to her brain due to cocaine and ephedrine.

“You say you were a friend to her, but you were no friend to her in death,” solicitor John McGuiggan told Corcoran.

Ducie did not return calls or texts from the Sunday World.

The final 72 hours of Katy French's life

The final 72 hours of Katy French’s life have been pieced together in statements from people who partied with the model as she headed for tragedy.

But despite an almost hour by hour account – mostly by men who were drawn to Katy’s fame and beauty – there are still unanswered questions around the 90 minutes before she was brought to hospital by Kieron Ducie and Ann Corcoran.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

9pm – The golden girl celebrates her 24th birthday – Celtic Tiger style. It’s not really her birthday, and she’s surrounded by the Teflon hangers-on and groupies she considers friends.

5am – The party bombs, but Katy doesn’t know how to stop, and instead of leaving Krystle to go home to bed, she uses a false name to book a room in the Westbury where she has a drinking session with journalist Brendan O’Connor and Kathryn Thomas’s ex, garda Enda Waters.

Friday, November 30

8.15am – Katy goes home to her mother’s house in Wicklow, heading out again in the afternoon to be interviewed in her Citywest apartment by journalist Brendan O’Connor. The interview starts between 2 and 3pm and Katy drops O’Connor home at 9pm.

Saturday, Dec 1

Katy spends the day being filmed by a TV crew on a pilot show called the Model Agent, and she and her pal Andrea Roche pose at Palmerstown House, the palatial mansion where Katy’s boyfriend, Jimmy Mansfield Jnr lives.

In his bedroom, Katy finds some other woman’s possessions. Despite her fury, the show goes on and Katy drives to Dundrum to continue with the filming.

8.30pm – she gets back to her mum’s and watches Brendan O’Connor on Ryan Tubridy’s Saturday Night Show.

9.59pm – Kieron Ducie texts her: “Are you out 2 nite hun …. Strutter x” He is out clubbing with his friend, Joe Hand, but he organises some drugs for her to pick up from dealer Russell Memery, telling him where he is to meet Katy.

Sunday, Dec 2

12.30am – Katy collects a €200 bag of cocaine from Russell Memery, and takes it to Ducie’s house in Lambertstown Manor, Kilmessan, where Ducie’s girlfriend, Ann Corcoran, is waiting.

2am – Ducie leaves Lillies Bordello with a model he calls “my nursie” and gets a taxi to his friend Joe Hand’s apartment in Swords.

5.24am – Ducie sneaks out of bed, leaving nursie, so as to check in with his girlfriend Ann at home.

5.25am – Ducie phones Katy. More than five-and-a-half years later, Ducie will tell Katy’s inquest that he can no longer stand over his claim that Katy had a convulsion at 8.15am because he was drunk.

He now claims he brought her straight to hospital, where he arrived after 10am. His phone records tell their own story about his movements.

5.30am – Texts beep into Ducie’s phone from his mate Joe Hand – asking where he is, and what does he mean he’s gone.

5.41am – Ducie gets a text from his “nursie” saying: ‘Can’t believe you f**ked off thanx.’

10.02am – Ducie phones Russell Memery shouting: “What was in the coke?”

10.06 and 10.08am – Ducie phones ‘999’ and says Katy banged her head.

10.12am – Ducie and Corcoran bring Katy to Navan General A&E. A nurse asked them if Katy had taken cocaine. Ducie lied that she’d drunk two bottles of champagne with Ann.

10.14 and 10.32am – Ducie contacts Russell Memery four times.

Friday, Dec 6

Katy’s life support is switched off. An autopsy will reveal she died of brain damage caused by ingestion of cocaine.

By Niamh O'Connor and Eugene Masterson

Forged money

Remington Shotgun

Gold Bars

Cocaine energy drink

MAC 10 machine gun

Crack Cocaine

As the tech savvy among you will know, anything and everything is available on the internet when you know where to look for it. But some dark corners of the web have more than dirty pictures of Jordan and illegal DVDs.

The Silk Road is the name of the internet's illegal marketplace, unsearchable through normal programmes like Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. This online crime supermarket can only be reached through a super untraceable, anonymous internet browser called Tor.

Normal currencies aren't used on the Silk Road as government bodies and banks can block transactions and monitor the cash's movement. Bitcoins are the world's most widely used alternative currency and are the trading tokens of Tor and the Silk Road. This non-traceable currency can be converted online and is currently worth €92.04 per coin.

It's no easy feat to find or sign up to the website, but once inside the customer is brought to a page with a list of categories running down the left hand side. They range from art and erotica to drugs and jewellery. All delivered by currier or post, vacuum packed and sealed in x-ray proof bags. The website also contains a rating system where customers grade their seller, like on ebay. They can leave a message too if their cocaine, rocket launcher or forged artwork wasn't up to scratch.

Tor was originally created by the U.S Navy and the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the American military's secretive research and development wing. The browser, no longer used by the American military, is now controlled by the Tor-Project, a research and education based non-profit organisation which is funded by the US, Sweden and various foundations.

The Silk Road has a no child porn and no weaponry policy, but even so their choice of stock ranges from the illegal to the insane. Various grades of heroin are available including the high end 'golden brown' which can cost as much as €114 per gramme, to the much cheaper 'black tar' that has tortured families throughout Ireland for decades.

Ketamine, a horse tranquiliser which is now a prominent party drug can be bought in its pure liquid forms for less than €20 a gramme compared to €50 on the streets of Dublin. The cost of drugs on the Silk Road varies depending on the quality and quantity of the order. The prices seem to be cheaper than the Irish black market with the Celtic Tiger's number one prescription pill Valium costing as little as 41 cents per tablet online.

Untraceable credit cards linked to African banks can also be purchased with ease as well as forged licenses and passports. In the website's book section literature on picking pockets, heroin manufacturing, how to home make C4 (a military grade plastic explosive) and 'The 21 Techniques of Silent Killing' are for sale beside various other banned works.

Also available on the Silk Road is list of items that reads like a letter to Santa from a hard-up terrorist: handcuff keys, money counting machines, an infra red transmitter for controlling traffic lights, untraceable mobile phones, a 1 carat certified diamond worth €2,326, cell phone signal jammers and a steel plated bomb proof ex army Land Rover Defender.

In the services section internet hackers can be found who, for a price, will break into email accounts, phones or business databases to extract valuable information for clients.

Irish sellers appear on the Silk Road too, selling prescription medicine such as Xanax and Codeine. They also sell illegal drugs like weed, ecstasy, former head-shop drug mephedrone and LSD, a popular hallucinogenic drug from the 1960's.

Since the Silk Road refuses to sell weapons other vendors have popped up to fill the gap in the market. Arms Depo and Black Market Reloaded carry much of the same criminal equipment as the Silk Road while also deal in illegal firearms.

A Glock semi automatic handgun can be delivered to your door piece by piece from the Netherlands in a matter of weeks. The Black Market don't stop with handguns either, there is a plethora of Russian weapons being sold from former Soviet nations. These include the infamous Ak47, the Dragunov sniper rifle and the RPK heavy machine gun.

More expensive American machinery can also be secured such as the M4 assault rifle for €2,252. Pipe bombs, hand grenades, bullet proof vests and everything else a Bond villain would need to start their own dictatorship in a small African nation is available at the click of a mouse. Even Ferraris, Porsches and Lamborghinis can be ordered from car thieves who advertise their services, including shipping and false registration plates for a bottom line price.

Although no-one thinks the internet is safe or controlled, it is surprising to find that machine guns and heroin can be delivered to your door, no questions asked for a reasonable fee. Thankfully these sites are extremely difficult to find and use without the proper expertise and online experience.

Popular: Michael Lynn with pupils

The home cops believe Lynn was renting

Pricey: Lynn's luxury bolthole

Michael Lynn is being held in Cotel prison in Brazil

A luxury villa just 300 metres from a beautiful sandy beach with crystal clear waters; the mercury hitting nearly 30 degrees even in winter and a relaxed job teaching English to the locals. It would be the perfect retirement for many, including perhaps many of the victims of fugitive solicitor Michael Lynn’s alleged €80million property fraud.

But for Dublin solicitor Lynn (44), if not for his alleged victims, the dream became a reality after fleeing Ireland in 2007. It is only after his unexpected arrest this week by police in Pernambuco, Brazil, that the remarkable audacity of the life he built to avoid justice was revealed.

Living openly after he and his wife Brid were granted residency in Brazil after the pair had a child born in the country in 2012, they appeared completely unperturbed at the wreckage they had left behind in Ireland and quietly went about their business, according to neighbours.

It was only when police swooped on him at a shopping mall near his luxury villa on Thursday that he realised the game was up. Previously, he had believed himself safe because of the lack of an extradition treaty between Ireland and Brazil – and the fact he had a Brazilian child.

He settled in the beachside city of Jaboatão dos Guararapes in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco. It is a suburb of state capital Recife, which will be one of 12 host cities in the 2014 World Cup.

A region popular with tourists for its stunning beaches, Lynn’s home was in the Candeias neighbourhood, nestled between the Atlantic ocean and the Lagoa do Olho D’agua lagoon.

Although police sources indicated his address was a modest bungalow rented for €1,100 a month, neighbours said that an Irishman and his family had actually been living at a luxurious bungalow bolthole, complete with swimming pool, barbecue and patio, in the next street.

One suggested he had been arrested this week, while another identified him as “Mike” and recognised a photo of Lynn. It is not uncommon in Brazil for individuals to provide the authorities with an address for correspondence which is not their main residence with no suggestion of any wrongdoing.

Though there was no answer at either property, the trappings of family life could be seen from beyond the perimeter wall of the smart villa. A new silver Citroën Xsara Picasso sat on the drive next to a neatly-trimmed lawn scattered with children’s toys.

A grand wooden bench swing overlooked the lawn and a large porch and seating area had a large black metal barbecue. On the other side of the drive there was an outdoor swimming pool, with comfortable wicker chairs, sunloungers and another barbecue. It was not obvious whether anyone was at home, but a dog could be seen inside the property.

Neighbours, who are overwhelmingly Brazilian, said they found their neighbour to be modest, polite and also discreet.

“He would walk his dog here,” one said. “We knew he was Irish, but had no idea about his past. He was just taking care of his family and teaching English.”

Lynn, who practised on Capel Street in Dublin before being struck off, told police he chose to live in Pernambuco because he liked the tropical climate and the hospitable reception of the community.

A four-bedroom house in Candeias can cost up to €270,000, according to Brazilian property website Zap. Like many desirable neighbourhoods in Brazil, prices per square metre have rocketed over the last few years. In the area where Lynn was living, property prices have risen by almost 70 per cent since 2010.

The location is enviable not only because of the climate, but also because the house is just 300 metres from a beautiful sandy beach. The Cadeias beach has crystal clear waters and its 3km of fine sand are rarely bothered by many sunbathers.

A short hop from there is the language school in the Piedade district, where Lynn taught English to Brazilian teenagers. In photographs posted on the school’s website, Lynn poses with groups of pupils in front of a whiteboard in a classroom.

He appeared to be well-liked in the community and among his pupils. After his arrest on Thursday, Lynn was visited by his wife at the Federal Police station where he was questioned before being transferred to Cotel prison on the outskirts of Recife, according to local press yesterday.

The total capacity of the prison is 700, but there are around 2,400 inmates being held there. A Federal Police spokesman, said: “His wife was very emotional. He showed no signs of anxiety, he was very calm.”

Their next meeting is likely to be in the Cotel custody centre, where all detained inmates are taken while their case is opened. Marcionila Teixeira, a journalist in Recife who has visited and written about the prison, said it was difficult for relatives to access those being held because there were so few staff to search them and let family members into the prison.

“The conditions are inhumane. Because it is the front door of the prison system, wives and other relatives of the prisoners are eager to visit them. Many there have been arrested for the first time, which causes great strain on relatives,” Mrs Teixeira said.

Anyone arrested by police is initially held here before being moved to either Complexo do Curado in the west of the city or Presídio de Igarassu, north of Cotel.

Photographs released by police showed Lynn’s passport, the extradition papers and his Brazilian foreigners’ identification card.

He said he also moved to Brazil because of the financial crisis in Europe and wanted to stay, his lawyer Eloy Moury said.

“He has a Brazilian child and lived legally in Brazil, has property in his name and had no shady deals,” Mr Moury said.

“He came to Brazil because of Europe’s financial crisis. He wants to stay here. We are going to look at the process to request that he remains here.”

Mr Moury added a Brazilian judge would have to hear the case before he could be extradited but there was no date set for his appearance. Local press said the administrative process could take up to 40 days.

Gang Boss Barron Rostas

THIS is the Roma Gypsy king who built himself a comfortable pad back home after fleecing kindhearted Irish pedestrians in a begging scam.

Barron Rostas netted thousands of euro a week forcing women and children to beg on to the streets of Irish cities and towns.

Gardai launched a probe into the Begging Barron after discovering he wired €40,000 home to Romania, a Sunday World investigation can reveal.

And this is the relatively luxurious pad that begging cash built for him in his native town. Brazen Barron showed it off to local journalists to boast of how well he has done abroad.

Today a Sunday World investigation can reveal that 40-year-old Rostas was the face of a high-profile sit-in by gypsies on the M50 roundabout some years ago.

Then he pleaded that he was one of a group of marginalised and penniless Romas in need of refuge.

But in the last few years he has conned gullible Irish shoppers and workers out of a small fortune while also claiming thousands in welfare benefits.

A lengthy Sunday World investigation today lifts the lid on the ruthless Roma begging-gang bosses who are getting rich off the kindness of Irish people.

We can reveal that the heads of the Rostas family of beggars are leading lifestyles that many Irish people would find impossible.

They own a fleet of luxury BMW and Mercedes cars, have several mansions in Romania and are exporting huge amounts of money out of our bankrupt country.

The brains behind the large-scale begging operation which sees hundreds of helpless Romas being sent to beg around the capital and beyond each day, is 40-year-old Rostas.

He was the leader of and spokesman for the 100 Romas that were deported from a makeshift camp near the M50 at Ballymun in Dublin four years ago.

Rostas claimed that in Romania he was forced to live in a dump and eat out of rubbish bins but as our exclusive pictures show he actually lives in a large home built in a castle style with its own turrets.

It is one of the biggest houses in the area and is one of just a number he has built over the last four years in his home town near Transylvania.

Rostas is regarded as being a multimillionaire in his Roma community and was happy to pose for pictures outside his mansion while his exploited workers in Ireland are forced to live in squalor and beg for a living.

Gardai suspect that his family has received hundreds of thousands of euro from his gang of child beggars. Rostas and his second in command - his 26-year-old son Raju - routinely threaten their "workers" with violence and have lieutenants monitor them to make sure that they are not siphoning off money for themselves.

Even though Barron Rostas was deported from Ireland in July 2007 he was back in the country within weeks and has been at the helm of the begging racket ever since.

Romanian police told gardai that Rostas was using his begging racket cash to build houses in the village of Vadu Crisului in the north of the country and was regularly travelling back and forth to monitor and manage his property portfolio and to collect the begging cash, which was sent via money transfer using Western Union.

Rostas - who is thought to have fathered dozens of children - has convictions for robbery in his home country and served a four-year jail term.

POVERTY PLEA: Rostas’s beggars earned fortune

He has several public-order convictions in Ireland and fled the country last April after gardai came looking for him because of an outstanding warrant.

He is regarded as being extremely intelligent and when he arrived in Ireland five years ago, he quickly identified that Irish people were very generous and were willing to hand over loose change to Romas.

He also saw that Irish women were easily intimidated and came up with the idea of putting Roma beggars at ATM machines and car park ticket machines where people were handling or using cash.

He realised that if his beggars became aggressive and intimidating that, more often than not, women would give them money to simply go away. It was a plan that has netted him thousands of euro and made him a wealthy man in his native Romania.

When he is not in Ireland, Raju Rostas takes over as the head of the lucrative family business.

LUCRATIVE GIG: Beggars use children to get sympathy from shoppers

Raju lived in a house in Manor Street near Dublin city centre until recently when it was raided by gardai as part of an operation to smash the gypsy gang.

When gardai raided the house in April they found €400 in €50 euro notes, which they believe was made from begging and was about to be exported to Rostas in Romania via Western Union. Rostas claimed that the cash was actually bail money.

He is very well known to gardai here and has been arrested on at least 30 occasions over the last three years for begging. His wife is also a well-known Roma beggar and he has fathered two children with her.

Raju has a string of convictions for begging, theft and road traffic offences and each time he is detained he pretends that he cannot speak English so that gardai have to waste his time in custody trying to track down an interpreter.

He has admitted to gardai that he is involved in organised begging and that the proceeds were being sent back to Romania to his family.

When his house in Manor Street was raided the landlord threw him out and he moved his family to another house in nearby Phibsboro.

The Sunday World has observed many members of the extended Rostas family leaving the new address and heading to town where they spend the day begging before returning home and handing the cash over to Raju.

A number of other men also left the house on several occasions and broke into a derelict factory where it is suspected they were stripping copper wire and scrap metal for sale.

OFF TO ‘WORK’: Barron Rostas’ Roma gypsies leaving their house with kids to go begging

Officers discovered that 20 people were living in the house and they would be made to walk to Dublin each morning to beg and would not be allowed home until they collected a minimum amount of money.

Undercover lieutenants regularly pass by and plant marked notes in the workers' begging jars. If the marked note is not handed over to the boss at the end of the shift, then they know the person is stealing.

Children as young as seven are sent to beg for the Rostas clan and teenage girls are made to cradle their young children to gain sympathy and cash from naïve Irish people unaware that their money is actually going to a cynical crime syndicate.

Some of the child beggars are also put to work around bars and restaurants, stealing handbags and mobile phones.

Pintea Rostas, who is 21, is also on the radar of gardai. As well as begging, Romanian police believe that he was involved in trafficking another Romanian national to Ireland in February of this year for the purpose of begging.

The trafficked man was arrested by gardai and charged but has since fled the country and escaped the clutches of the Rostas family.

Another Roma being investigated by gardai is 28-year-old Vasile Drama. Drama came to Ireland in 2000 and was arrested for begging a number of times when he was still a juvenile.

In 2005 he was arrested with a number of other Romas for demanding money for supplying forged passports. He was never charged.

Despite having no visible means of income, Drama leads a luxurious lifestyle and drives a BMW and Mercedes and lives in a large house in Celbridge, Co Kildare.

He recently paid €4,000 as a cash down-payment on a Mercedes car. He is an associate of another Romanian who lives in Portlaoise and is the suspected head of a human trafficking gang.

Vasile Drama's wife, Claudia Radu, is a convicted beggar who was slammed by a judge for "dragging" her young child between cars at traffic lights where she was harassing motorists to hand over money.

A 41-year-old Roma is also being probed by the authorities here. He has convictions for robbery in Romania and moves between Dublin and Cork. He is at the helm of the gang that controls the selling of roses in pubs, which is a regular sight around the country.

The sellers are mainly after wallets and mobile phones though and the 41-year-old drives an Audi car. He has built a luxury home back in Romania and like Barron Rostas travels back and forth between the two countries.

It only became illegal to beg on streets in February after the previous law forbidding begging was struck down.

Gardai are concerned about the activities of Roma gangs and have successfully cracked down on their activities and have charged nearly 200 people with begging, including dozens of minors.

Most of those arrested and charged have pleaded guilty but because the maximum fine that can be imposed is €250, the heads of the Rostas betting gang believe the money they make is worth the odd setback when the beggar is detained.

Israel Keyes

US Police have invited the Public to have their Silence of the Lambs interaction as they seek help find the victims of serial Killer Israel Keyes, who has admitted killing three people, but is believed to have murdered at least another eight.

Professor Wilson is one of the world’s leading criminologist and a member of the Sunday World Crime team and he profiles the chilling killer exclusively for readers.

US law enforcement have been driven to desperate measures after a serial killer in custody committed suicide before Police could extract the full details of all his murders.

Thirty five year old Israel Keys killed himself after he murdered at least 11 others in a spree which he only partially admitted to his Anchorage Alaskan cell while facing charges for the murder .

He had only just confessed to being a serial killer, rapist, bank robber, arsonist and child abuser but left out most of the details of his victims and Police have had to now engage the public, to view the interrogation tapes, to try and find clues to his other crimes and victims.

It’s rare for a Police force to invite the public to assist with the investigation into a serial killer and even invite us all to have our ‘Clarice' - ” Silence of the Lambs’ moment but for once, the Public get to be where I have been many times.

People always say to me “what is it like talking to killers and rapists’ and only very rarely is it very revealing. Often they are dull and unco-operatvie and very rarely, do we have a Hanibal Lecter encounter!

Certainly, a serial killer has never said anything remotely as dramatic as the Thomas Harris creation. “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some Fava beans and a nice Chianti”, Hanibal Lecter told his muse, Clarice in the movie.

Everyone imagines that talking with serial killers after their arrest and imprisonment must help the police in their investigation, and more broadly lead to a greater understanding of the phenomenon of serial murder. New leads will be discovered and the modus operandi (MO) of the killer forensically analysed and assessed.

After all, we’ve all seen the movies when the police officer, or the psychologist, the FBI profiler, or the behaviourist – or whatever else they are now being described as, finally gets to sit opposite the serial killer to discuss what motivated him to kill, and which also helps to bring a dramatic conclusion to the film.

Of course it is nothing like that in reality. And, I have even gone as far as to argue that those serial killers that I have interviewed fall into two distinct groups. The first – the largest group, are silent and uncommunicative.

They refuse point blank to discuss anything at all about their case, to the extent that Harold Shipman once simply turned in an interview to face the wall throughout the time that the police officer spoke to him.

The second and smallest group talk endlessly at you, but not necessarily to any great purpose. They construct what they want to say to better suit their own conception of themselves; sometimes they shape their discussions so as to try to manipulate their court case; or the prison that they are to be located in, or even the cell that they have to occupy.

The key here in all of this is the phrase “talk endlessly at you”. They don’t talk to you, actively engaging in a conversation, but merely use you as a living wall, as Dennis Nilsen did when he discussed his life with me in HMP Whitemoor. Your role is simply to be there.

I thought about all of this when watching the FBI’s recently posted interview with Israel Keyes. He appears to be forthcoming; keen to help move the investigation on; anxious to appear helpful – he peppers his interview the words “honest” and “honestly”, but in reality he says nothing at all.

The two FBI officers in the interview are keen to establish rapport, which is what they have been trained to do and so swear, apologise for leaving him in the room waiting for them to arrive, and make small talk about working out, but Keyes never once loses control of what he says.

The phrase “cat and mouse” hardly does his performance justice and so there are no new pieces of information revealed and the interview is shaped entirely by what Keyes wants to get from that interview.

This is perhaps the most important point – what is it that Keyes actually wants from this interview? Why does he want to sit opposite these two FBI officers?

Keyes will have had a variety of motivations – including what he claims is actually his “real” reason (about another case he says that he wants to talk about), ranging from his desire to show that he is still in control no matter that he has been captured, to a need for attention, both from the interviewers, and more broadly from the media.

He knows that it is likely that this tape will be released to the media. He was also probably simply bored, and having two nice people to patronise and talk at would have given him some variety in an increasingly ordered and dull prison life.

However the last thing on his mind is to actually help the police with their investigation; that’s simply not on his agenda.

The most important exchange in the tape that I viewed was for me his statement that “bottom line is I get to make all the decisions”.

I can think of no better way to understand and explain Keyes and this interview and of course he would go on to commit suicide – the ultimate form of control. So even if Keyes is talkative he still for me fits that group of serial killers who are uncommunicative. Have a look at the tape and become your own crime profiler.

Watch Israel Keyes' interview here

The man gardai want to talk to (left, in white shirt)

THIS is a suspected member of the gang believed to have been involved in the murder of Detective Adrian Donohoe – partying the night away at a big fat gypsy-style wedding in New York last weekend.

The suspect from south Armagh fled to America within weeks of the brutal assassination last January.

He disappeared into the tight-knit Irish traveller community and Gardai admitted they had no idea where he was or whether he would ever come back home.

However a Sunday World undercover team tracked down and photographed the burly suspect last week.

He has moved to the US in recent months and is working and living among the expat Irish traveller community.

The same night that he enjoyed the raucous party, the widow of the slain officer cut a dignified figure as she accepted an award on behalf of her tragic husband.

The suspect has so far failed to make himself available to Gardai working on the murder case that shocked the nation last January even though he is a major person of interest in the investigation.

Detectives believe he was one of the five-strong gang behind the Co. Louth armed robbery in which their colleague was shot dead. The popular officer was shot dead as he approached a car parked near the Lordship Credit Union.

The Sunday World previously revealed how CCTV footage of the crime scene caught a man raising a long-barrelled shotgun to his shoulder.

The gang immediately fled the scene in a Volkswagen Passat, which was later found burned out north of the border.

Detectives working on the case have narrowed down the number of suspects and have identified several associates who could help in their enquiries.

The same gang are suspects in as many as eight other armed robberies in the region, according to Sunday World sources.

A number of the suspects’ and their associates are closely connected to the well-known Crossmaglen Rangers GAA club which previously told the Sunday World it would not shield the killers.

The suspect turned up at the wedding bash last week at the Ramada Hotel in Newburgh, New York, 60 miles from the city.

He mingled with guests and the teenage bride’s entourage at the ‘night-before’ party, where the young Irish traveller women turned heads with their ornate dresses.

According to sources, he left Ireland last April for the United States on a 90-day visa, and now faces deportation if picked up by US authorities.

“He wasn’t throwing the pints back, he was definitely cagey and kept looking around. He never let the car keys out of his hands,” a source told the Sunday World.

Guests at the party were loud, while children were allowed run free in the hotel lobby, to the bemusement of other guests and staff.

“I don’t think they had seen anything like it before,” a source told the Sunday World.

The next day the young couple officially tied the knot in a local church before the entire wedding party travelled south to Parsippany in New Jersey.

The group had block-booked 40 rooms in the Sheraton Hotel, where the wedding party was held in the ballroom.

The Irish travellers had hired security guards, while the hotel also maintained its own security presence, corralling the young children in the lobby area. There was pandemonium at one point as a young child briefly went missing, before being reunited with his family.

The young bride at the weekend’s wedding grew up in Belfast, while her fiancé is from a family originally from south Armagh, like the suspect.

The newlyweds and their guests were unaware that one of their revellers is one of Ireland’s most wanted men.

The Sunday World previously revealed how associates of the suspected cop killer gang had links to Irish travellers in the US and Australia.

Irish traveller tarmacking and paving crews work all over continental Europe, as well as in the US, Canada and Australia.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic last week end, Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe was being honoured in Ireland at the People of Year Awards.

His wife Caroline accepted an award on his behalf in a televised ceremony at the City West Hotel.

It was the first time that Caroline Donohoe has spoken publicly following the murder of her |husband.

The mother-of-two said Adrian was the “best in the whole world” and that he “was the best father that any child could have”.

“There was nobody like Adrian and Adrian was the love of my life. I will miss him every minute of every day as long as I live,” she said.

The gang ambushed him and opened fire with a shotgun when he went to investigate a suspicious car near Lordship Credit Union.

They snatched more than €4,000 in cash before making off in a Volkswagen Passat on January 25.

This week at a policing conference in Dundalk, Chief Constable Matt Baggott said the PSNI are fully committed to catching the gang behind the attack.

He denied the PSNI was afraid to go into south Armagh’s Bandit Country where the gang behind Adrian’s murder are believed to be based.

At the annual cross-border seminar on organised crime, he said: “There is nowhere we won’t go to bring people to justice.

“We will pursue every avenue. We will spare no resources, we will make sure we support our colleagues here as fully as we can. That is my commitment to you.”

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan said the probe into the murder has been exhaustive.

“The investigation of Adrian Donohoe’s murder is a major investigation. And right now we have collated over 3,200 statements and reports,” he said.

“I’m not going to give any indication as to how close or far away we are. But whether it will be short, medium or long term, we will be ready, if and when an opportunity presents itself to bring those people to justice,” he said.

No arrests have yet been made in the investigation, despite a €50,000 reward for information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of Garda Donohoe’s killers.

Organised criminal gangs in south Armagh’s ‘Bandit Country’ have been notoriously difficult for police on both sides of the border to |penetrate.

The murders of Paul Quinn in 2007 and Keith Rogers in 2003 also remain unsolved.

In the second of our two-part look at the life and crimes of drug dealer John Gilligan, Nicola Tallant and Mick McCaffrey look at the criminal's prison and court battles and check out his options as he prepares to rejoin society,

To watch The Gilligan Files part 1, click here

TIGHT-LIPPED: Tony O’Reilly refused to comment when approached by Niamh O’Connor

A CHRONIC gambler who went on a multi-million betting bender with stolen post office savings is training to be an addiction counsellor on a taxpayer-subsidised course.

Our pictures show ‘Tony Ten’ O’Reilly free as a bird – despite being sentenced to four years behind bars less than a year ago.

The former postmaster turned over a staggering €10million through online betting accounts after stealing a total of €1.75million of other people’s savings from Gorey post office in Co. Wexford to feed his betting spree.

At his trial in Wexford Circuit Court last December Judge Pauline Codd said Tony O’Reilly should continue to receive treatment for his gambling addiction.

But Lady Luck is back in the fraudster’s life.

The 38-year-old is already enjoying the privileges of pre-release in Shelton Abbey open prison in Arklow, Co. Wicklow.

And, in another amazing twist of fate, he’s also got day release and is training to become a counsellor in addiction on a taxpayer subsidised course.

As our incredible pictures show, there’s one law in this country for white-collar criminals, and another for everyone else.

Tony Ten’s online identity was a nod to his e10million betting spree with Paddy Power bookmakers.

Here he can be seen being dropped off by a prison van at the main Dublin road in Arklow – his own personal taxi service.

The former compulsive gambler then enjoys the fine weather while waiting for a lift to Kilkenny from a friend.

When approached by the Sunday World, the dad of one said he couldn’t comment about whether he thought that it was fair that he was out and about after being jailed for four years on December 20 last year.

He didn’t want to talk about the stolen savings he’d gambled either, or his sudden change in fortune.

The 14 manic months in which he became one of Paddy Power’s most valued online customers was also off limits when we tried to quiz him.

Tony Ten placed €40,000 in a single bet on the Norway women’s soccer team to win the World Cup against Brazil in July 2011. Norway lost 3-0.

He also backed the Iranian U-23 soccer team, the New York Giants American Football team, horses, snooker and tennis contests.

Detective Ian Hayes had told the court at his trial almost a year ago that they located a ‘Tony Ten’ account with Paddy Power, which was an account owned by Tony O’Reilly.

There was evidence, he said, of a turnover in the account of €10m, with €8.3m winnings, leaving a €1.7m loss.

Towards the end of the timeframe, the bets were sporadic and included various sports. There was one bet of €40,000 on the Norwegian women’s soccer team on June 9, 2011, and this was indicative of the type of betting taking place.

The postmaster, who lived in a modest house on Hacketstown Road, Carlow, first went off the rails in May 2010.

At the time, his wife Lorraine was totally oblivious to his gambling problems. The couple never enjoyed the high life, because Tony kept throwing good money after bad.

Tony O’Reilly pleaded guilty at Wexford Circuit Court in December 2012 to six charges of theft from Gorey post office and six charges of falsifying An Post lodgement dockets on December 19 last year.

During his trial the court heard how he’d managed to first dip his fingers into the post office money where he worked. He took €8,000 in coins at the start, but by September, when he went on leave, he’d spent €60,000 of other people’s money and had moved up to €50 notes.

He told gardai if he wrapped the bundles of cash up tight, the missing money wasn’t noticed. He would take cash out of a safe, and then when doing accounts he would inflate the figure for the money in the safe, putting down larger figures than what was really there.

Over the following four months he gambled €751,000. And in a spectacular four-week spree between April and May 2011, he went through €319,000.

By June of that year he had thrown another €290,000 into chasing that money back. One offence involved him changing the figure on a docket from €97,538.32 to read €397,538.32

Paddy Power considered Tony Ten such a VIP, it brought him on an all-expenses-paid trip to Punchestown and the Aviva stadium.

But after an audit at the post office, he knew the game was up and went on the run, before turning up weeks later in Belfast.

Judge Pauline Codd said he’d held a position of significant trust as branch manager of Gorey Post Office.

He was also to continue to receive treatment for his gambling problem, the judge added. She said that in the public interest, a custodial sentence would be required. She imposed a four-year sentence on the count of the theft of €751,000, with one year suspended.

There were concurrent sentences on the other theft offences, which were suspended for five years on condition that O’Reilly co-operate with the Probation Services on his release from prison and be of good behaviour.

niamh.oconnor@sundayworld.com

SLAIN: Dealer Philip O’Toole

The scene where the dealer was dumped

GRISLY: Philip O’Toole’s dad Brendan

THREATENING: Graffiti in the Hazelwood estate in Bray, Co. Wicklow, intended for a local garda

These chilling messages sprayed on the walls of a housing estate are intended for a brave garda who was the subject of a recent death threat case.

Graffiti in the Hazelwood estate in Bray, Co. Wicklow, tells courageous Detective Garda John O’Reilly “Suck rats c**s stitch up scum” while in nearby Ashlawn the message addressed to him reads “I’m watching you dirty pig”.

The messages mark a sinister escalation in the activity of drug gangs as the first anniversary of 33-year-old murder victim Philip O’Toole approaches.

The latest incidents read like an episode of Love/Hate: A 40-year-old woman missing… a family abducted from their home in the middle of the night… a young man driven up the mountains and forced to kneel as the barrel of a gun is shoved in his mouth… houses full of children riddled with bullets… and now gardaí under threat of death.

Fear and intimidation have become petrifyingly real for the residents of the seaside town and other picturesque villages dotted all over the Garden County as two drug tribes go to war.

‘Philly’ O’Toole had almost 40 convictions when he was shot and dumped in a ravine in Trooperstown, near Laragh, after disappearing on January 7 last year.

His murder remains unsolved, but all hell has broken loose as rival drug gangs have gone to war from within and without ever since.

O’Toole, the dad of a seven-month-old baby, had refused to work for the Puck Ugly gang controlling the drugs scene in Bray, headed by ‘the Gutter Man’ Brendan Kinlan, prior to his jailing in the UK in 2012.

The Pucks have close ties with ‘Fat’ Freddy Thompson’s mob and their drugs are delivered wholesale to the town once a month in a Transit van – the underworld’s terrifying take on operating a professional business.

For attempting to go solo in Arklow, O’Toole became a marked man and in August 2011 an attempt was made to kill him. But the hit failed and he found out exactly who wanted him dead because the gunman told him when he was pulling the trigger: “This is from [named three Puck Ugly kingpins]. Take it like a man”.

After surviving the botched attempt to kill him, O’Toole formed an allegiance with his enemies’ main rival, ‘Mr Big’ – a notorious Wicklow dissident and pimp.

Mr Big has been taking over the drugs supply all along the east coast and he recently bought into a legitimate business, which was firebombed by the Pucks earlier this year.

The paranoid Pucks’ determination to kill O’Toole then went into overdrive, in case he got his revenge strike in first.

The file on the murder has now gone to the DPP. It suggests that for all the enemies he had, Philly O’Toole was in fact shot dead by a trusted friend.

The veteran drug dealer pal – who was associated with the Pucks, but who had known Philly for years – was the only one the slain mobster had been confiding in about his movements.

Detectives believe the murder may have been ordered by Mr Big, the Continuity IRA thug double-crossing O’Toole.

Since the slaying, all hell has been breaking loose. Mr Big has taken over Philly’s patch in Arklow and the Pucks have gone head-to-head with Mr Big – firebombing his business after he attempted to impose a tax on the gang for selling their drugs in Bray.

Another arson attempt on the home of a close relation was never even reported to gardaí.

The Pucks have been asserting their dominance within the gang too.

When a rumour went around that one of their own runners – who is in his twenties – was building contacts of his own with a drugs gang in Tallaght, west Dublin, he was told to collect a €20,000 consignment of cocaine from under a hedge on the Ballywaltrim Road.

But when he got there the stash was gone, and he was blamed for selling it and pocketing the profits.

The man was told he now owed the gang €30,000 – the extra €10,000 was added on as an interest charge.

After he was driven into the mountains and given a warning – a gun was put in his mouth – he was told in no uncertain terms to pay up or he’d be killed.

Members of his family borrowed amounts of €2,000 to pay the debt.

The shooting of a 15-year-old in the foot in Fassaroe in recent weeks is also believed to have been carried out by one of the Pucks. The fear of what the gangsters are capable of is now so overwhelming that several men have been forced out of their homes.

And in April, 40-year-old Jacqueline Smith – who is understood to have lived in terror of the gang – disappeared and was last seen in Carlow.

Meanwhile, the Pucks are also increasingly involved in recruiting new blood.

Gardai have also investigated the links between the abduction of a woman and her two sons from a housing estate in Arklow and those responsible for the murder of Philip O’Toole.

niamh.oconnor@sundayworld.com

PERVERT: Simon Murphy in court

DISGUSTING: Simon Murphy is working behind the bar of local pub

OUTRAGE: Locals have shunned The Hollow bar and restaurant

VILE: Simon Murphy

This is the serial child sex abuser who is now working behind the bar of a rural Irish pub in a case that has split a tiny village in two.

‘Black’ Simon Murphy (59), from Ramsgrange in Co. Wexford, has returned to work in the pub and restaurant owned by his wife after serving a lengthy jail term for sexually abusing four young girls.

The re-emergence of the sick paedophile has led to some locals boycotting The Hollow bar and seafood restaurant in Ramsgrange village, near the famous Hook Head.

However, hundreds of tourists who still flock to the pub – which is famous for its seafood – have no idea that the friendly barman serving them is one of the country’s most dangerous sex beasts, who even abused his own sister during a 25-year reign of terror and who local sources believe was part of a wider paedophile ring.

This week the pervert boasted to an undercover Sunday World team how the restaurant was so packed for New Year’s Eve that it was no longer taking bookings.

However, while day-tripping tourists and holiday home owners from Dublin are ignorant of his sick past, locals are not and are snubbing the boozer in their droves.

Diehard supporters of Murphy’s wife Mary are still drinking there defying the boycott which is causing serious tensions in the community.

The re-emergence of Simon Murphy has shocked local people, who were amazed when his wife stuck by him and allowed him to get involved again in the family pub.

It has also infuriated his victims and their families. One relative of a woman Murphy abused said: “It is disgusting to drive by that pub and know Simon Murphy is behind the bar.

He abused young girls over three decades and I don’t believe for a second that he is reformed and poses no danger to women. It has sickened the majority of the village, but there is a divide because some people still go there.”

Murphy made the front pages of several newspapers in June 2006 when he went to the Supreme Court in an unsuccessful bid to be released early from an eight-year jail term.

The father-of-four admitted 42 counts of sexually abusing four girls, some for over a period of 25 years.

He began to rape his sister Nuala in 1969 when she was aged just 10 and was charged with six counts of unlawful carnal knowledge of her. However, she was far from the only victim.

‘Black’ Simon was also charged with 24 counts of sexual assault on a victim who was from Dublin and one count of sexual assault of a girl who was 16 at the time of the offence.

He also admitted to seven counts of sexual assault and four of unlawful carnal knowledge of a fourth victim, who was only 13 when those offences occurred.

The combined abuse occurred over a 25-year period, but local sources say there were far more victims than the four girls Murphy was convicted of sexually abusing.

Nuala Murphy bravely waived her right to anonymity so that her evil brother could be publically identified.

Tragically, Nuala was also sexually abused from the age of four by an uncle, Edward Ryan, from New Ross. He was jailed for eight years in connection with the abuse.

Another victim, ‘Mary’, was just 12 when her four-year abuse ordeal began. She later became so depressed that she attempted to take her own life.

In 2004 one of Murphy’s victims was awarded €600,000 damages by a jury as compensation for the six years of abuse she suffered from Murphy. However, the Supreme Court later reduced the amount to €350,000.

Murphy then brazenly went to seek a refund of the costs of fighting the compensation award. This was rejected.

Murphy is the father of two girls and twin boys.

Simon senior picked out girls to abuse and told them there was nothing wrong with what he was doing.

Black Simon’s sister Nuala was forced to flee to the US after being disowned by her family at the age of 22 when she bravely came forward to tell gardai of what happened to her at the hands of Simon Murphy and her uncle.

At the time of Simon’s conviction in June 2002, she told the court: “I felt so dirty and ashamed at what happened. I would cry and rock and rock myself for hours trying to go asleep. I would never know when he was going to pull me into some room and rape me.

“I came home on this occasion to break my silence so as to have Simon

Murphy made known for what he really is. I did not want it to continue and happen to anyone else. I have been rejected by my family, but I had to bring the sexual abuse out into the open.

“My family threatened that they would disown me if I brought this out into the open. I don’t want any other child to suffer what I had to.”

She explained how the majority of the abuse occurred as she slept in a bunk bed at night. She said Simon would tell her there was “nothing wrong” with what he was doing.

She began to abuse alcohol when she was 12 because of her ordeal.

She flew back to Wexford from America to see her brother sentenced and said that if she had gone to the gardai earlier she could have stopped three other young girls from being abused.

She said: “My family have completely disowned me. They supported me when I confronted Simon and kept it within the family, but now they have isolated me.”

Simon Murphy told the court he was “very sorry” and he had “disgraced” everyone.When contacted by the Sunday World this week, Mary Murphy did not comment.

Dalkey House of Horrors

Dalkey House of Horrors scan

Cynthia Owen.jpg

Gardai should have retained soil samples from the garden at the Dalkey House of Horrors before conducting a dig in 2005, top forensic experts have said.

Dr Stuart Hamilton, one of the world’ s leading forensic archaeologists, has told the Sunday World that good practice maintains that soil samples would be taken and preserved as early as possible.

“Forensic techniques are changing so fast that advances in the technology can break cases months and years later. It is an established practice to preserve evidence even for future analysis especially in relation to the grave searches,” he said.

Senior Gardai this week laid bare their files on the excavation of the garden at the Dalkey House of Horrors as a petition to force Justice Minister Alan Shatter to re-open the case was signed by thousands.

Officers met with the lawyer representing Cynthia Owen, Gerry Dunne, to explain how they had excavated the site in 2005 – ten years after they were first told a baby had been buried in the garden.

For years the dig has been shrouded in secrecy and Gardai have repeatedly refused to divulge the details of the search. However, following a Sunday World Cold Case investigation into the case, newly appointed bosses at Dun Laoghaire Garda Station arranged the meeting.

It is understood that pictures were produced of the dig and Garda technical experts explained how they had sifted the soil examining the whole area to a depth of almost a metre.

Scantech Geologist Tom Davitt who had carried out a survey on behalf of the Sunday World at the garden in recent weeks and who attended the meeting said that he was satisified the dig had been comprehensive but he was surprised that Gardai had not collected soil samples before excavating the ground.

“We were able to look for the first time at the actual ground surveys done before the garden was dug and I could clearly see an anomoly in the area where Cynthia Owen had pointed to as a burial site of her infant child.

“This is the same area where our own survey showed up ground movement and which ultimately resulted in the Gardai sitting down with Cynthia’s lawyers to explain how they had searched the ground,” he said.

“I would say that the fact that the anomolies had shown up give a lot of weight to Cynthia’s allegations that the child had been buried at that spot. I am very surprised that soil samples appear not to have been taken in this area before it was dug but I believe the Gardai are making further inquiries about that.”

It is understood that further meetings are due to be held in the coming weeks with Mrs Owen’s lawyer as Gardai consider re-opening the Dalkey House of Horrors investigation.

For years Mrs Owen, who says she gave birth to two children as a result of rape and abuse by members of her families and an alleged paedophile ring that operated in the village, has called for her case to be investigated by the Garda’s elite Serious Crime Review Team but she has been refused.

She has also been stonewalled by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter despite the fact that he represented her for four years when he was in opposition.

Over the past week she has been inundated with support from all across the country after the Sunday World published a picture of her first child, Noleen, whose body was found stabbed to death in a Dun Laoghaire laneway back in 1973.

We revealed how the murder investigation into Noleen's brutal death had been investigated for just six weeks and has remained unsolved ever since.

Our investigation found a shocking catalogue of Garda cock ups over the years which have resulted in no prosecutions ever been taken in what has been the most shocking case of sexual abuse in Irish criminal history.

It is understood that recently appointed senior officers in Dun Laoghaire including Chief Superintendent Diarmuid O’Sullivan and Detective Chief Superintendent Kevin Dolan are committed to examining the files to see if a review should be ordered.

This week they attended the meeting in which technical experts explained in detail how the 2005 dig had been conducted.

It is understood that Gardai have explained that they didn’t take soil samples at the time because they were told that they wouldn’t be able to take DNA analysis from the soil.

However our Sunday World Cold Case experts disagree and have pointed to the Garda’s own Crime Investigation Techniques handbook issued first in 1979.

In it, under the guidelines for the investigation of murder and suspicious death, it states that during an exhumation, samples of soil should be taken from areas around a grave and should be enclosed in sterile, air tight containers and should be sealed and labelled.

Senior sources have told us that the same rules should have applied in Dalkey where officers were attempting to find an unlawful grave where a suspected burial took place.

Dr Stuart Hamilton, a UK Home Office registered forensic pathologist who has conducted more than 3000 autopsies and was part of the team that discovered the 500 year old remains of Richard lll explains:

“Soil sampling is good and proper practice and should be done as early as possible. In the case it should have been done in 1995 when the claims were originally made and not ten years later when it was decided to excavate,” he said.

“Laboratory analysis of the soil sample would be looking for signs of putrefaction, that is decomposition, and to see if the suspected grave site differs in relation to other soil samples on the periphery of the location.

“Bacterial samples should be taken to assess if there is contamination and that could be a factor in how the victim died. In some cases we can tell by analysis how a body may have been buried and what tools have been used.”

He continued: “If samples are taken and preserved then we know we can always go back and analyse them so in that respect time and technology is always going to be on our side. But if you don’t take the soil samples then every year that passes is a missed opportunity.”

Hamilton who is also a pathology advisor to the BBC Drama ‘ Silent Witness” was previously critical of the Garda’s handling of the suspected grave of Mary Boyle which was dug up by a Garda team of 14 officer with a JCB and without retention of soil samples. That search is now the subject of an investigation by the Garda Ombudsman.

Forensic investigators can detect the previous presence of remains by seeking out a variety of molecules which are released when body tissue breaks down and decomposes.

These molecules like putrescine and cadaverine are now used increasingly as biomarkers for investigators looking for remains and are the same markers which cadaver dogs use to identify remains or places where remains have previously been buried.

Nicola Tallant and Donal MacIntyre

Sign petition to Alan Shatter here

David Miscavige

The furore over a promotional video shown at a major Church of Scientology conference in Clearwater in Florida has portrayed the cult as an almost comical but it does highlight the unquestioning way that followers believe all its promotion – a classic sign that the group is indeed a dangerous cult.

Claims that they have accomplished an 85 per cent drop in drug related crime in Ireland by handing out leaflets, video footage of uniformed followers marching into a rural Garda station and mock up interviews of representatives in supposed radio station interviews have turned the spotlight on the peculiar pseudo religion that courts celebrities and controversies in equal measures.

A number of years ago I wrote a book on the secretive Church of Scientology and delved into the bizarre world of the science fiction cult best known for its connection with Tom Cruise.

Many will be flabbergasted that the Church would make such ludicrous claims of accomplishing an 85 per cent drop in drug related crime without facts or statistics to back it up.

Those who have watched the video of the Scientology gala event online might be stunned by the numbers of unquestioning followers listen intently as leader David Miscavige describes how the Dublin mission has achieved such an enormous victory in the fight against crime that neither Gardai nor Government have come near.

Plenty will wonder why a group struggling to convince the world of its mission would leave itself so open to worldwide mockery.

Having peeked into the wacky world of the Church of Scientology I am neither flabbergasted nor stunned as it is clear that the organisation is living in a bubble very far from reality.

The promotional video, among many things, features an interview with a ‘scientologist’ on Donegal’s Ocean FM. Management at the station were astounded when they heard theey had appeared on the film, as the interview had never happened.

They were forced to issue a statement clarifying that it wasn’t filmed in their studios and that the interviewer was not an employee of the station.

The piece was featuring the work of the Scientology ‘Truth Against Drugs’ campaign and showed uniformed members striding purposely into Carndonagh Garda Station and handing out leaflets around Dublin Streets.

It ends with a bizarre scene of a group of scientologists waving and smiling for the cameras over claims that they had slashed drug related crime by 85 per cent.

The conference is Scientology’s Gala event of the year. It was at the same conference in 2004 that actor Tom Cruise extolled the virtues of Scientology on a video link to thousands of the Church’s followers and received his ‘Medal of Valor’

The interview, during which Cruise insists; ‘At the scene of an accident, only a scientologist can really help’, made a huge impact when it was unleashed on the real world on YouTube four years later..

The litigious Church then tried to to sue an online magazine for posting the video. An internet based anti-Scientology organisation Anonymous, which has staged marches and protests across the world, emerged as a direct result of what it called ‘censorship’ by the Church.

Cruise, it emerged had decided to ‘come out’ as a scientologist on the video after completing OT Level Vll - an intensive series of drills scientologists believe rid themselves of ancient spirits implanted in primitive man by a galactical dictator.

The following year Cruise was flanked at the same event by pregnant girlfriend Katie Holmes when he was honoured for his ‘press relations activities'. These evidently included Cruise upsetting Brooke Shields on national television, and mothers everywhere, by claiming that there was no such thing as post natal depression, his appearance on another show with a wild eyed fanatical rant against the psychiatric profession and Oprah Winfrey and the infamous couch jumping incident.

Former Irish scientologist John Duignan says that those working for the Church do so unquestioningly and give up their families, careers and years of their lives to toil around the clock to recruit more members to the cult.

Appearing on the big screen at the Gala event is what all scientology missions strive for.

No matter what its followers are told Scientology never caught on in Ireland despite repeated attempts to push it on the public from its headquarters, and only centre, on Dublin’s Abbey Street.

In 2008 the Church attempted to cash in on the recession and save the ailing mission by luring new clients with promises of financial success, career improvements and expertise in controlling cash flows.

At the time the struggling Mission, had been given notice that it would be struck off the Companies Registrar unless it filed it’s tax return, re-launched its website in the hope of recruiting new members to keep it afloat and offering courses in finances, anxiety and even child rearing at knock down prices.

The Church of Scientology claims to have the answers to all problems of marriage and children, careers and finances and even drug and alcohol addictions. But critics insist that it merely a cult cashing in on the insecurities of people who fall for its claims.

A ‘free personality test’ is the normal introduction to the Church. It is designed so those who take it fail and find out what is ‘wrong’ with them. They are then told that they can be fixed through some studies and courses at the Church Mission Centre. Courses are followed by hours of auditing – which helps individuals rid themselves of bad spirits and then they begin a series of levels to become Clear.

Scientologists believe that all humans are immortal and are stuck in a hamster wheel of constantly re-incarnating because they haven’t ‘cleared’ themselves on this earth. By completing the hugely expensive courses and auditing levels, which will cost more than euro 300,000, they believe they become ‘Thethans’, stop re-incarnating and join their founder L Ron Hubbard somewhere in space.

I suppose if you believe that it’s not too hard to see why you could accept without question that leaflets can beat drug crime!

Threat: Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh

Drug dealer Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh has built a charmed life for himself on the Costa del Crime – but now a mixture of financial and personal woes are threatening his champagne lifestyle.

Kavanagh, originally from working-class Drimnagh in west Dublin, is one of the biggest Irish players in Spain and senior drug sources say his operation makes millions, supplying most of Tallaght and a large trench of the Drimnagh drug turf.

For almost a decade he has overseen a major operation from Benalmadena where his wife Tracey Brady lives like a society queen, his daughter is a darling of the show-jumping circuit and his son is idolised as a professional boxer.

But sources say that ‘Hatchet’ is now spending an increasing amount of time back in Ireland and his lifestyle has come under pressure as his funds continue to deplete.

Horse play: Kavanagh's wife Tracey

‘Hatchet’ beds down with his old buddy Paul Rice in his house at Mayberry Park in Tallaght – a home that was once owned by his wife Tracey. And sources say his frequent trips back to rainy Ireland are as much about trying to save his business as take a break from pressure of his relationships in Spain.

“Hatchet and Tracey have believed for a long time that people have been looking at them with envy. They like to show off their wealth, But it seems that all is not well and in recent years he has become increasingly concerned about debt collecting in Ireland,” a source said.

“Rice was initially based out in Benalmadena and when he moved back in 2012 it was initially thought they had had a falling out, but that is not the case. The fact is that Rice came back as a debt collector for Christy Kinahan and Kavanagh. Now Kavanagh is back himself to show his muscle. He is desperate for funds, like everyone else in the drugs business.”

Tracey and Hatchet were teenage sweethearts and in 1995, when she was in her early 20s, she was the full owner of their home at 24 Mayberry Park in Tallaght and they had their first child Jamie. He would go on to become the famed boxer Jamie Kavanagh, who has made his name fighting in the US but who has close links with Kinahan and

his cronies back in Spain.

Tracey paid for son Jamie to get top-level boxing coaching

In 1996, when he was just 25, Hatchet was jailed for four years for dealing heroin in the Crumlin area. His defence argued that he had only come before the court as he had developed a dependency on drugs and had to work as a courier to feed his habit. The Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told he was involved in the chain of drug distribution headed by drug barons – who unfortunately were rarely seen in court.

Following his sentence Kavanagh linked up with Rice and together they rose to the top of the drug ladder here before packing up and heading for Spain. Tracey sold the house at Mayberry Park in 2005 and a year later it was bought by Rice.

In Benalmadena the Kavanaghs moved into a plush villa. They hosted parties for friends and relatives back home with no expense spared. Tracey indulged her love of cosmetic treatments and went under the knife a number of times. She also lavished her children with everything they needed to enhance their chances at turning their hobbies into careers.

Son Jamie got top-level coaching to improve his performance in the ring. He went on to fight under America’s most prestigious trainer Freddie Roach. Tracey’s teenage daughter followed her mum’s interest in horses and the pair threw themselves into the show-jumping circuit.

Horse play: Kavanagh's daughter

Tracey, who is a sister of Gerard ‘Bra’ Brady and an aunt of gang enforcer Greg Lynch, who survived an assassination attempt before Christmas, regularly returns home to Oliver Bond Flats in the inner city, where her extended family still live.

She recently started managing a beauty salon in Benalmadena and friends say it is the first time she has worked in years.

“Tracey loves coming back and flashing her expensive jewellery and her tan and lapping up the compliments, even though everyone knows she has botox and surgery all the time,” a friend said.

“She has absolutely no problem living the life on the proceeds of crime. She throws money at the children and then goes on about how great they are, but it doesn’t cross her mind the example she is setting them.”

April Cool

The mother of four, who is under 24- hour garda protection, has been housed in the notorious estate, once the Dundon stronghold, in the run-up to two key trials for the murders of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan and businessman Roy Collins later this year.

Cops fear missing Afghan is dead

The Sunday World can reveal that gardai excavated a site in Coolock in the hope of finding the body of 19-year-old Adam Khan Al Kozai.

Deadliest Cache

Ammo for gang hit found at bus stop

Stashed

Shot

The hunt for missing Mary Boyle

Quack widow: family search for answers behind Pierre Christian Lawlor's surgery death

Missing hours that could have saved Katy

European ruling opens the door for release of notorious Irish killers

The Wolf's former pal says he saw Ducie taking cocaine on the night model Katy collapsed

The Dark Web

Lynn the lap of luxury

Investigation: The Roma Gypsy King who built an empire on kind hearted handouts

Serial Killers never act like 'Hanibal Lecter'

We track down man who Gardai think has info on Adrian Donohoe murder living high life at gypsy wedding in New York

Video: The Gilligan files part 2

Bet to society

Turf war threatens to spiral out of control

Village divided as rapist returns to work in wife's pub

Garda should have retained soil samples during Dalkey House of Horror dig says expert who helped identify 500 year old remains of Richard III under a car park

Science Fiction - Church of Scientology claims it has slashed drug crime in Ireland

Drug dealer's charmed life in Spain threatened by financial woes