Lines of Enquiry

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Now, let's get into today's lines of inquiry, case notes. 01:06 My name is John Sweetman and this is Lines of Inquiry Case Notes. In Case Notes, we step away from telling one specific case in detail and instead take some time to reflect, to revisit past investigations and to respond directly to you, the listener. These episodes are about opening up the conversation. We'll be speaking with expert guest contributors, diving a little deeper into the issues behind the stories, and responding to some of the much-valued correspondence that comes into our mailbox. If you have a message you'd like to share, a case you'd like us to revisit, or someone you'd like to hear from on future episodes of Case Notes, You can get in touch with us at linesofinquiry at goloudnow.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram at linesofinquirypodcast to keep up to date. 01:53 My guest today is Pat Murray, a retired detective inspector with Angarda Siakana. 01:59 Over the course of a career spanning more than three decades, Pat became involved in investigating some of Ireland's most serious and high-profile crimes, including the killings of Rachel O'Reilly and Garda Adrian Donoghue. Pat retired in 2018 at the rank of Detective Inspector. Since retiring, he has written about his experiences in The Making of a Detective and has continued to reflect on the cases, investigations and people that shaped his career. Pat, you're very welcome. 02:28 Yeah, thank you very much, John. 02:29 I believe, Pat, you first applied for the Guards at the tender age of 17. Is that right? 02:35 Yes, I was 17. I went into the Garda station in Navon and wanted to join the Guards to find out. I remember a sergeant there taking me in and he was... pulling and dragging at me and he says ah you're a bit skinny he says you want to put a bit of meat and he says you're too young anyway he says you have to be 18 so he says go away and and come back again yeah you know so i says fair enough but i did go away but i didn't come back straight away tried again and i was coming up to 25 years of age yeah and i if i didn't like you know apply before that's like i was gone like he couldn't 03:10 Yeah, it was the same when I joined. You had to be, what, a minimum of 18, but you couldn't be over 25 when you'd applied. 03:16 Yeah, and that was it. So I did apply and got an interview and got on the list. Now, eventually I was called. 03:23 I think I read before that very early on in your career in the Guards, you wanted to be a detective. Would that be right? 03:31 Well, I... I didn't know really what I wanted. You know, I was, I suppose like a lot of fellows who joined the guards that the drift, you know, you're especially sent to Donnybrook, you're stuck on posts. My career didn't really take off until I went to, I got a transfer after a year and a half to Blanchardstown. Out to the Cay. Out to the Cay, yeah. And there it was like the difference between Donnybrook and Blanchardstown. Totally different, yeah. Yeah, totally different. 03:58 And I got out there and then you got in the patrol car there, you were, there wasn't really that many beats in Blanchardstown. 04:04 Yeah, and it's such a big, it's such a big district in it. 04:07 Yeah, and it was sort of a young district in that it was like, you know. Newly. Yeah, you had the likes of corporation states there, you know, and it was, it was. 04:17 Do you know what I mean? Totally different. You had an element of people out there who were, like, they were rough, like, you know, a lot of them, like, you know, and you had to deal with that. But like everywhere else, there's great people as well, like, you know. But I did have my run-ins and, like, I was, you know, some of the things you see and you were involved in, like, it's, you know, people would hardly believe you. 04:38 And that's just day-to-day front line. 04:41 That's day-to-day. Yeah, well, I've been in riots up in, like, you know, Fort Lawn Sheepmore. Yeah. where they'd have, let's say, two or three stolen cars going around and you're up there in a patrol car and you're looking at, you know, this is dangerous here now, like, so you'd have to get reinforcements, like, you know, and there'd be stoned in you. And when I mean stoned, there'd be blocks and rocks being thrown and, like, it was fairly hectic, like, you know. 05:04 Did, like, did an opening come then in the detective, in, say, the DDU for a DO or? 05:10 Yes, well, look, I was, while in uniform, I showed that I had the ability to solve crime. Yeah. And I did. And, uh, I know the, the, the school in Mulhollard was burned down and, uh, it was arson, like, you know, and, uh, I said about, I'll see, can I, you know, my own myself, like, you know, and I found a person that I knew and they told me, look at those three young fellas and I named them and she told me that they were out there in the field. before the fire you know so they were good good suspects for the start i knew them like you know and uh when we examined the school we found paper and on the paper there was a fingerprint right of one of the youngfills yeah and i looked at the providence of that piece of paper and i could establish it was locked in the principal's press right and it was locked Yeah. 06:05 And he was able to tell me that's my writing on it. That's it. And I had it in the drawer and it was locked. 06:11 So it had been taken from the principal's office. 06:13 It had been taken and he was able to tell me there's no way that that person could have had any access to that piece of paper while during school hours or anything like that. And he only got his fingerprint there while he was there illegally during a burglary or whatever. So I did arrest him and went through the motions and he wouldn't admit anything and done a file DPP and they said, yeah, charge him with the arson. 06:42 And it went to court and on the day of the court, he pleaded guilty. 06:48 Yeah, well, if there's fingerprint evidence there, it's kind of hard to argue. 06:53 Yeah, and he pleaded guilty. But that same culprit was murdered. several years later like so a lot of the guys i had come across and dealt with were murdered like i had i had a very close association with the wesley gang like you know yeah and and i knew them all very well and they knew me and i sort of i look at i got on with them in that they were criminals i was a guard they knew my job yeah and i knew what they're at yeah so we we you know what i mean and yeah i caught a lot of them and Do you know what I mean? 07:25 They knew me. Yeah. And I always thought, and the way it was with me, you just treat them with respect. Like, you know, I'm not saying like you're lower than me. Yes. I would say, look, you treat them with respect and say, that's it, look. Yeah. I think they really do appreciate that. Yeah. 07:42 But I mean, you would have cut your teeth, first of all, in uniform in the cave. Oh, yeah. Like, as you say, learning the ropes, doing, you know, going on your own initiative to do investigations and then local knowledge and all of that. Yeah. 07:58 And that was seen. The detective inspector there at the time was Derek Byrne, who ended up being an assistant commissioner. And he saw that I could solve crime and he wanted me up and give me a chance in plainclothes. Yeah. To give me a chance. And I did. And I excelled when I got up there. I'd done my best. 08:15 Yeah. 08:16 you know, doing as good as anybody. And during that period of time, I was in Blanchistown, there was 11 murders I was on. Yeah. Investigation. So I got to see, now you're only a, you're only the T-boy, like, you know, you were only there, you know. But still. But still you're learning. You're learning all the time. I was watching all the time. I was watching, watching. Yeah. And the incident room is a fascinating place. And I used to see how they'd, generate the jobs and how they work them out and finish them off and put them aside or we'll work on this a bit more, whatever. That always fascinated me. 08:46 A lot of people would think that possibly the day-to-day work of a detective is all hunting down suspects and this and that and the other and murders and all that. No, no. It's hard graft. 08:58 Hard graft. Yeah. And any detective or to solve it, it's hard graft, like, you know, and you have to read through a lot of stuff. And like, just to give you an example, like you mentioned Adrian Donoghue's murder there earlier, like, you know, the lines of inquiry on that particular murder was topping 6,000. 09:17 Yeah. 09:18 And the ordinary run of the male murder would have maybe 250 lines of inquiry. 09:23 So I'm just telling you, that's what you had to be aware of all aspects of that investigation. So you had to compartmentalize in your own mind where things are at. And I'd have my own notes and graphs. And like I found the analyst absolutely fantastic in any of the big investigations I did because they could... let's say, draw up graphs of certain things and connections and stuff like that, you know, which keeps you in the loop. Like, you know, it is a fascinating area to work on. 09:54 It really is. Like, investigations are fascinating. 09:57 Going back to, say, any investigation, really, what would you think separates, say, a good investigation from a poor one or what's important early on to get right? And it could be any kind of crime, like... 10:12 You have to have empathy. It's the first thing a good detective should have is empathy. Empathy. Yeah. He must know what he's doing. He must know what the definition of a crime is. He must, like you say, God, there's a burglary there. Yeah, yeah. Like, what am I doing? Like, what's my function here? 10:31 He has to sort of, like, you know, the definition in my mind and what I always held to in all my investigations is was it's a systematic approach to identifying, preserving, collecting, and analyzing information. And then information can come in any form itself. It can come as a written statement, forensic reports, telephone records, you know, CCTV, whatever. But you have to analyze all of that and see what comes out of it that would be evidence or circumstantial evidence. 11:06 And it's something that's overlooked sometimes is the value of circumstantial evidence and how you can develop it. And I think there's a lot of crimes out there that could be solved if circumstantial evidence was looked into more. 11:18 But anyway, look, that's just the way I operated and it was just me. And you're saying that empathy then? 11:24 Oh, empathy because you have to, if someone, let's say, is murdered, there's a family, you know, that's devastated, that's You have to sort of feel their pain, really, and you have to associate with it. You know, it doesn't mean you have to be going crying your hands out, but you have to sort of recognize that they're suffering and that you are there to help them. And the thing about it is that you, as a senior investigator or as a guard, They can't look anywhere else. The guard is like, you know what I mean? And that's it. 11:54 Yeah. 11:54 And that's a huge responsibility on the guard. Yeah. And that's it like, do you know what I mean? But I always took that responsibility as best I could and, you know, dealt with the people and be honest with them. Look, I'm going to do my best. I said it to the Callalees at the time. I said, I'll do my best. 12:11 You can trust me. I'm honest. And I'll keep you up to speed with everything you're doing. I'm not perfect. And if I make a mistake, I'll tell you. But just I need, you know, just put your faith in me and I will do my best. And I remember... rose like shaking my hand and and i could feel the power and the energy from her body going into my hand and yeah my body's if say i trust you i you know she she she wanted to like you know she was suffering her daughter was murdered like this is this is rose cannily and her daughter was was rachel was rachel well rachel o'reilly as people will probably 12:49 be more familiar with. 12:51 Yeah but you have to understand and the empathy comes in Rachel's birthday was in October as well like it was a week or so after she was murdered and I called on that day of Rachel's birthday to the Callalees and I brought them a bunch of flowers. 13:09 Yeah. 13:09 And Rose, I always respected and always felt, well, look, that's a nice gesture. And we sat down on the couch in the conservatory and we had a good chat. 13:21 Do you know what I mean? Just being human, being honest. 13:25 Yeah, I know what you mean. But in particular, we'll go back to that case, the murder of Rachel O'Reilly in the Knoll in North County Dublin in 2004. I remember it well myself. I was in the Bureau at the time and I know the guys and that there were... And I've read about it in your book, The Making of the Detective, and we've covered it here on Lines of Inquiry. But I'm just wondering, how early on in that investigation did Joe O'Reilly become a suspect? 13:57 As everyone says, when a woman is killed, like, look at her husband and this, that, and the other. And of course you have to look at the husband, but they're not. So you look at the husband because the person that's nearest to them will have the most information about the person that's dead. 14:12 So, you know, you will always look at to rule them out or in or out like, you know. 14:16 But I remember, I remember reading in your book that one of the first things that you kind of noticed about the scene having, having gone in there and it was, you know, supposedly a burglary gone wrong, but you said it to the super, Tom Gallagher, that wasn't a burglary. 14:32 That's correct. Tom Gallagher was standing outside the back door of the house where Rachel was murdered and Tom was a very clever man, an excellent detective in his day. 14:42 There was two of them, the two brothers. The two brothers, yeah. I remember the marriage. 14:46 He said to me at the back door, he says, the family had been all in there, the mother and the father and some of the siblings were in there and there was crying and wailing and I can imagine, yeah. And it was from the depths of their heart that you could hear this. And I had to go in and clear the scene because it needed to be preserved. Yeah. And I went in and I said, look, I need you to leave. And there's an ambulance outside and I think you should go just to, you know, get checked out. 15:18 And that's what struck me first is that Joe O'Reilly was standing on the road himself on his own. away from them, outside the gate, standing on his own, you know, where you would think, well, maybe I'm wrong, but you think that you're off to lose, your wife is dead, and, you know, your family, you know, your in-law, you'd be down what happened and, like, you know, and hugging him and, you know, but Joe was aloof, he was standing on his own. 15:49 And that sort of... you know, raised the flag with me, like, you know. But anyway, anyway, going back to Tom Gallagher, Tom says to me, he says, he says, I want you to go in there now and tell me what you see. I says, fair enough. So I went in anyway, and having been trained as a, seeing the crime examiner, like it stuck out like a sore thumb to me because I was trained to have what's in the burglary like, you know. 16:11 Yeah, sure, you would have been at countless burglars. 16:14 Yeah, yeah, you know, and when you see presses pulled out, like in the kitchen, yeah it's a no no the kitchen table was turned over the sitting room was over to the left and you could see where they got DVDs and they were scattered around the place you know ah you know and then I made my way down the passageway and I was looking and I could see in the hall down the way there was blood on the wall and uh I got down there and I looked down and then Rachel's head was on the saddle board and her body was into the room. I looked at the blood splattering and I could see there was blood and it had dried and there was blood on top of that. 16:53 So it showed that she was only beaten but a little period of time had passed and she was beaten again. 16:59 and like it was all very strange because I know because that was a burglary that was gone wrong the person that wanted to be getting out of there as quick as possible I know burglars and you know burglars don't go like that like the professional burglar will break into a house first place you go is the bedroom And he'll go to the woman's side of the bed and he'll look for jewelry. He'll take the pillowcase off, fill it with whatever he can, and he's out and he's gone. That's it, he doesn't hang around. He doesn't want to be caught, he doesn't want any confrontation. That's it. But this wasn't a burglary and I just knew it, you know. 17:33 But the ferocity of the beating that Rachel suffered, it wouldn't fit with that scenario. 17:40 No, it wouldn't, not at all. So I come up anywhere and I went outside and Tom Gallagher said to me, well, what did you see in there? Well, I said, firstly, it wasn't a burglary. Good man, yeah, correct. And I said, whoever did this to the woman down there hated her. And he says, correct. 17:59 And he said, go out and have a chat with the husband there outside. And that's what I did. 18:04 And now he wasn't a suspect at that stage. I went out to talk to him, but there was a few things in the conversation I told him. I told him, like, we'd be investigating this and all this, that, and we want to speak to him later on. And he says, fair enough. And I says, can I have your phone number? The phone number he gave me was Rachel's. Right. And I didn't know that, obviously, at that time. He gave me the number. And I said, like, we'll be in contact later. 18:28 And he says, fine. I said, the other thing is, don't talk to the media. I says, they'll be wanting to speak with you and all. I said, don't talk to me. Leave it to us. And he says, fine, fine. 18:39 And as it unfolded over the time, you know, while he was, he nearly was getting a job, which is like, you know. Any chance he got, he was speaking to the media. Yeah, but like that worked in our favor at the end of the day, believe it or not. And I'll explain that to you. But what the unfolding part of that interview with him that night was like, you know, I wanted to know who could have done this to Rachel. And yeah. He said he didn't know and she had no enemies and she was well-liked. And I said, I'll go handle that and the other. And then I asked him, I said, maybe she was having an affair. 19:10 Yeah. And that maybe it's a disgruntled wife who wanted to get her back, you know. And he said, no, neither of us were having affairs. So I thought that was, to me, it just clicked with me. I said, God, that's an unusual answer. Yeah. So I asked him again in the course of coming out, did you have an affair? 19:29 Yeah. 19:29 And he looked at me and he sort of sat up a bit and was looking at me. 19:33 And he says, no. And I knew by him. Yeah. He's fucking lying to me. 19:37 Yeah. 19:38 So I said, I'm not going to let this sit now. Like, you know, but I waited until coming near the end of interviewing him. And then he started to come up and, oh yeah, well I sacked the fella and he could have done it. And then he was, you know, there's a guy who comes up here and sometimes walks the dogs for us and, you know, he could have done it and All of these scenarios, which you have to take stock of, this is what he's telling you. And all of those turned out to be, there was no truth in them. And then coming on the end of the interview, I said, I said, Joe, and he sat up, I said, Joe, did you have an affair? 20:13 Or are you having an affair? 20:15 Yeah. 20:15 And he looked into my eyes and he knew that I was, didn't believe him like me. And he said, yeah, well, I did have an affair, but it's all over now. And he told me he was with Nikki Pally and that's it. And she, someone he used to work with before. And it was all over and it was finished with and he didn't want his family to know about it. 20:32 Yeah. 20:33 And I says, when was the last time you spoke to her? And he was, I don't know. Yeah. 20:37 a couple of weeks or whatever it was he said, I can't remember now. And that was it. But when we checked his phone records, like we went, I didn't, but we had another team that went to Nikki Pelly to speak with her and she was quite open with Jim having an affair with Joe and she was up front and she loved Joe. And then when we looked at the phone records of his phone and hers, like he was on to her that morning from 6am. 20:59 Yeah, there were numerous calls. 21:00 Numerous calls. So like this article was clicking with me then, there's something more to this than meets the eye. And also the other thing that sort of spooked me a little at the time, I said to Joe, like, we want to take your shoes, the ones you were wearing today. Yeah. Because there's footprints in the house and we have to eliminate them. Yeah. And you are in there and you're down near the body and that. And he says, fair enough. They're upstairs. We went upstairs and, uh, He was gone, he's gone for a long time, like, and I was thinking, we were looking at, like, you know, there was the D Super and a sergeant there, Aaron Gormley. 21:35 He was a detective at the time, great bit of stuff. And we were looking at each other and we sort of, we were all thinking the same. Is he not a runner or what, like, you know? But he comes down with the boots and he says, I have, these are them. And we put them into an evidence bag and that was going to tank them very much and this, that and the other. Now, when we analyzed those shoes, there was blood splattering on, I think it was the left shoe in, around, under the laces, down the side. 22:04 And we established that that was Rachel's blood. 22:07 And when Joe had come into the house, he had knelt down and put his feet together. Yeah. And he threw a box that was near Rachel's head with blood in it into the room behind. So my understanding of the time was that he couldn't have, no blood could have got on the shoe anymore. 22:24 At that particular, yeah. And the forensic lab at the time told us that there were drops, there were drops coming down. Coming down. And that would indicate that it was him there at the time of the, you know, so I said, this is, this is, this is big evidence, this is, you know. 22:41 But that would have been down the line a bit. 22:44 Yeah, but what happened is that the forensic lab then, when they analysed everything that we had and they said that they can't stand over, that the drops were coming down, that the drops could have got there when he threw the box. Yes. But my point is that his feet were together and I had witnesses that made statements of that. But it didn't carry any weight really with the DPP as such. There was a doubt. So that was it, even though I thought it was... 23:11 But it's still, like, I mean, it's still evidence gathered and it's, you know. 23:15 It was in the pot there. 23:17 And it supported other stuff, like, I mean. 23:20 But what we learned as well, and why Joe took so long to get his boots, he polished and polished over the blood. Right. And polished, but the blood was that small you couldn't see with your eyes. You know, so it was forensically found. But, like, he had polished the shoes. So why would you polish the shoes if you were given them for granted? 23:37 Yeah, so look at it. 23:39 Now, I know, like, I mean, that was such a high profile case at the time. And even today, and it's more than 20 years ago, it's still very much in the public consciousness, Rachel's murder. At the time, did that mean it was more pressure on you guys? 23:57 No, in actual fact, we didn't know how much, well, I didn't know how much The media and the public were invested in this crime. And the reason the where is because Joe appeared on the Late Late Show and the whole country said he's the one who did it. And they all became mini detectives. At that particular time when he was on the Late Late Show, I was in Spain on another mother investigation. But I watched it when I came back and you could see it like, you know. What was it with that particular case that... Well, he was the narcissist then. 24:29 And then his narcissist. He was the narcissist and the psychopath. Yeah. And he was the controlling merchant, like, in the marriage. And do you know what I mean? How many marriages are like that? How many men are like that to women? Like, you know, it's not right, like, you know. 24:44 No, absolutely not. But you don't go to that. No. You don't go to the extremes that he went to. 24:48 No, no. 24:49 But then, like, I mean, it always struck me... 24:52 Like you say, and you're correct, he was a narcissist and a psychopath. 24:56 But he must have been a bit of a tick too, to think he'd get away with it. Well, I'll tell you how lucky he was. Like we seized all the CCTV, obviously all around that area of the house, and all the way from there right back into Broadstone. 25:10 Yes, where he was supposedly working. 25:12 Yeah, and we would have got his car passing a particular camera, and we would have got his number plate and all that. But the sun was shining that morning and shined in the camera and he was able to drive by without being captured. Yeah. So that's how lucky he was. 25:28 He wasn't lucky enough though. 25:29 No, he wasn't lucky enough. 25:30 Because... 25:41 I remember at the time, this was sometime after Rachel's murder. I was on another murder. I was down the country, down in Limerick. And some of the NBCI guys were there. And one of them was at the D Super. I can't think of his name now. But we were having a pint in the Two Mile Inn the first night we were down there. And this was during the investigation into Rachel's murder. And I remember saying it to him. I said, it's gone very quiet on that. Yeah. And he said, just wait, it's the phones that's going to do it. And in that case, in the subsequent trial and stuff like that, the phone evidence was vital. 26:17 It was vital. It was absolutely vital because Vodafone were able to tell us that they now were able to track phones. 26:25 This was kind of new territory. 26:27 It came up with cell site analysis. And it was, in all fairness to NBCI, Martin Donilon, who said we should look at this, you know. And we did, and we got in contact with Vodafone, and they provided us with an expert from France who came over and analysed everything that we had. And he was able to show that the phone went through certain masts on the way out and on the way back. 26:52 It'd be pinging. Pinging, yeah. Like the phone's constantly pinging. 26:55 And we were able to prove that Joe, firstly we'd have to prove that he had his phone. And that night when I spoke to him first, I asked him about his phone number. And then I said, that's not your phone number. You gave me Rachel's number. Why did you do that? Oh, I thought you wanted Rachel's number. And I said, no, it was your number. 27:12 So I got his right number then. And then we were able to track his phone. But the thing about it is that... We had to make sure that he had the phone and he said it to me that night. I had me phone all day and I made a right word in my notes. 27:29 And that was like your first interactions with him. Yeah. 27:33 And then he had a phone call. He had a, he was supposed to go for lunch that day with a guy and he, uh, contacted him and said he couldn't make it and he said it was Joe I was talking to or whatever like you know and that was it like so at that time Joe had the phone so and then there was another call I think it was Derek Quirney it could have been rang him asking where he was or whatever type. 27:58 I know having read about and it's in your book and it's also I think in Rose Callally's book There's a lot of detail given to the phone evidence in the court and the list of calls, the duration of the calls or who made them, who received them, where the phone was at that time. 28:17 But what people didn't realize as well, and you talk about the hard graft that goes on behind the scenes. 28:22 There was four aerials on the mast at Murphy's Quarry. And depending on the tilt of the actual aerial, you could cover its span between five and 35 mile. Yeah. 28:36 So we were, at the time of one of the calls he got, it was going through the aerial that was facing the house. 28:45 So he was there, down that side, you know, whether it be five mile or 30, but that's... That side of it. Yeah. And it was coming that we had to sort of find out with the tilt what area it covered. So we had to make two and a half thousand phone calls from different locations all around the Nall that to find out, well, my phone is going through Murphy's Quarries there now. Yeah. But if I go 10 foot down the road here, it's going through somewhere else. Yeah. So we had to draw that map and like that was. 29:18 That's hard going. Hard going. Yeah. It was, it was horrendous. Like, and then when we go back to what people don't realize as well is that the car that he was driving was a Ford Marea state car, which we thought was very few of them, but there was actually two and a half thousand as well registered in the country. 29:36 Yeah. 29:36 So we had to go and try and locate all of those cars and ask all the people. 29:42 That's the car that was picked up on some of the CCTV. 29:44 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was, we believe it was his car, it was his car, but you have to prove it like, you know. 29:50 But then, like you were saying earlier on, and, you know, it's all of these little things, well, not little, but, you know, they add up. You have the phone evidence, you have CCTV footage, you have the relatively unusual make and, you know, colour of the car. Him saying that he had the phone with him all day. 30:09 And then I think I read as well in your book that one of the team drove the route from Broadstone out to the Nile and back to time it. 30:18 Oh yeah, yeah. 30:19 It's all of those things put together. Oh yeah, all of those things. 30:21 And any major investigation, that type of thing has to happen, like, you know. You know, we had, I think it was something like 2,000 questionnaires, and they all have to be analysed and gone through. Huge. Huge. So it's a hard graft. It's not a case of sitting back and just the rest of it. 30:37 Yeah, and it's not a thing that you go in, you do your eight hours and you go home. But it's kind of there, you're switched on all the time. 30:44 Oh, you're switched on all the time. 30:46 Yeah, but at that time, I mean, you mentioned that when Joe went on the Late Late, In that infamous interview, you were investigating another case over in Spain. Would I be right in saying that was Colin Whelan? 30:59 That was Colin Whelan, yes. Yeah. A fascinating case. Absolutely fascinating. 31:04 There are some similarities between that case where he killed his wife, Mary Gough, and Joe O'Reilly, not least of which is it's in the same district. It's in the same district. You know, Balbriggan is only... 31:17 Colin Whelan was a big guy. He was six foot like him. 31:21 And there were big men. And Balbriggan is only a stone's throw from the Nile. I actually do remember Mary Gough. I used to see her on the train when I worked in town. It was just one of those faces that I remembered, you know. And again, it's... It's a terrible thing, like another beautiful woman murdered by her husband. 31:42 By the husband. 31:43 But for different reasons, well, with Colin Whelan and Mary, it was just greed. 31:50 Yeah, it was money at the end of the day, an insurance policy, a hefty insurance policy. 31:58 But the thing with Colin Whelan's case was that we believe he planned to kill her before he married her. Before he even married her. Yeah, and he went through the perfect six months of marriage before he killed her, like, you know. He used to send our flowers and our work colleagues, you've got a great man there, like, you know, this type of thing, you know. At Christmas time, like, he married her in, I think it was September, and then killed her in March. And then like, you know, in that period, Christmas time, he had bought her a lot of presents and put them under the tree and he wouldn't let her wrap them. 32:32 Because when people would come in and say, look at all the presents, she'd say, oh yeah, Colin bought me all of those. So he was, he was playing it. Oh, he was, he was. 32:39 But another narcissist. Oh yeah, absolutely. 32:42 And psychopath, yeah, he was, you know, and he thought he was like, you know, like a lot of these people that I've studied or not dealt with, their ego is massive. Yeah. They find, and it's their ego that catches them. 32:56 But that's what I was saying to you, Alain, I was saying that, you know, it always struck me that Joe O'Reilly must have been a bit ticked to think he'd get away with staging the burglary and all this sort of stuff. And, you know, the ferocity of the beating that Rachel took and knowing that, you know, in all of these cases, the first person that is looked at is the spouse. Yeah. But with Colin Whelan then again, and Colin Whelan had, you know, faked his own suicide then later and absconded. 33:24 But where does, he goes and works in a bar in, was it Malaga or somewhere like that? 33:28 Yeah, Portal News. But he could have gone somewhere, he wouldn't be so, he wouldn't be so much in the public eye. 33:33 Well, You see, he was clever enough in that, right? He had a false passport, a false name, the whole works, everything. And he got a job working in a bar, but this bar was synonymous only to yacht owners. If you had a big yacht, you pulled in. And if you bought the yacht from this company, you could pull your yacht in and you get free food and oil and you're looking at it. 33:55 So not really a bar where your average paddy on holiday would be good. No, no. 33:59 how the paddy from Balbregan would be in. But unfortunately, that's what did happen. The paddy from Balbregan went down to have a look at the yachts and spotted them. 34:09 And I think, if it wasn't for that stroke of luck, Didn't he, didn't Colin Whelan say to you after you had gone over there to lift him, to arrest him, that he had made plans to go for the field? Yeah, he said it to me on the plane. 34:22 He says, you're very lucky, you know. And I says, why, he said, another week and I was gone. Yeah. And I says, where were you going? He says, I was going to Singapore. And you would never get him. You would have never got him, yeah. Well, I would get him, I'll tell you. But it would have been a longer process, let's say. Yeah. 34:38 And like with the murder investigation for Rachel, that was obviously we spoke about it, the phone evidence was vital. But with Mary Goff's murder, when you were investigating Colin Whelan, internet usage and computer evidence. 34:57 It's the first time where the motive was found on the computer and, you know, the evidence was found on the computer, like, you know. And it was the first case where the computer was the main witness, like, you know. 35:11 Yeah, like, it's fascinating to me that, like, these two cases, these two murders, which are only maybe a year or so apart, and technological advances play such vital roles in both of them. 35:24 In both of them, yeah, absolutely. 35:26 Yeah, and then the other similarities, you know, husband, murderous wife, and you've got these two big, tall, burly fellas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's very unusual. 35:35 Very unusual, yeah. Well, Rachel was killed in 2004, and Mary Gough was 2001. 2001, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so like it was... 35:43 And it's terrible. Like, you know, every year you'll see it in Ireland where a woman is murdered or found in a house or found in a band. And it's the husband. Every second day or whatever. Yeah. So, like, it's terrible what women have to endure, you know, with a narcissist or a coercive control merchant. 36:02 It's something, though, that's... Only in very recent times, only within the last couple of years that this and the whole thing about... Well, it's a crime now, coercive control. If you'd asked me what that was five years ago, I'd have to look it up. 36:13 And there's more supports for women where they can say, look, I'm afraid of him, like, you know, and this, that and the other. And the whole aspect of, you know, the narcissist, if he wants to control and once he finds that his wife is leaving him, He wants to control, no, you're not leaving me. 36:29 And that's it. And that's it. And it's the most dangerous time for a woman. So she needs support to get out and be protected. 36:38 It reminds me, we covered it only in the last couple of months. 36:43 The murder of Siobhan McLachlan by her husband, Brian Kearney. And like that, coercive control and then the threat of her leaving him. Yes. And the loss of faith, the loss of money and whatnot. Yeah. And like that, it's just a dangerous concoction. 36:59 Oh, it's a dangerous concoction. Absolutely. You know what I mean? It's just an area that I was interested in. I know. 37:04 Because you've said before that being a detective also needs you to be a bit of a psychologist as well. Absolutely. I would think that's very important. 37:13 Oh, you'd have to read people. Yeah, you'd have to read them well, like, you know. And just getting back to Joe O'Reilly there, and I mentioned about, you know, the media. 37:25 Coming up to the trial, I was thinking it out, and I said, he has an opportunity to say he can't get a fair trial because of all the publicity. Yeah. 37:37 So myself and the detective Robert Keogh sat down and I said, Robert, what we're going to do... Robert Keogh. 37:42 He lives down the road from me. Yeah, it's scary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 37:45 And I said to him, Robert, what we want to do now, I said, is to get a... 37:50 Every article that appeared in the newspapers from the day Rachel died. Yeah. Up until today, which is, you know, coming a couple of weeks before the trial. 38:00 And I wanted, like, we divided up, like, what days it appeared. 38:04 Who wrote the article? Was there a photographer? Who was the photographer? What was the contents of the article? And where did it generate from? And that's what I wanted to know. 38:15 And we'd done that. It took us a while to do it. 38:19 And we discovered that 30% of the articles that appeared in the newspaper were generated by Joe Riley himself. 38:28 By himself. 38:29 So I had all that documented and done in a report and that, and I said it was served on the defense a couple of weeks before the trial. 38:38 So they never went down that avenue. 38:39 They never went down that avenue because I cut them off. 38:41 Yeah. 38:41 I cut them off. 38:42 But again, you're thinking ahead. Thinking ahead, yeah. And that was it. 38:45 So that was, they couldn't go down that road, you know. 38:50 What we've been talking about with Rachel's murder and Mary, Mary Goff's murder, that was during your time as a DS, as a detective sergeant in Balbriggan. 39:00 Yeah, and I was sort of, you know, coming into my own at that stage, put it that way. Yeah, just to say as well, I played a big part in these crimes, solving them. But there were other people there. Like, you know, we had help from NBCI, my own detectives and that. So there was other people there. Oh, absolutely. That was a team effort. 39:21 And like you said, like, I mean, the experts coming in from Vodafone and analysts and all that sort of stuff. 39:26 You know, it's a huge thing, like a big investigation like that with so many cogs. Yeah, yeah. 39:31 After that, like, I mean, you, as you say, you came into your own during your period in that, you know, Bad Brigham sub-district or district. Yeah. And then you subsequently went... 39:41 I went to... I was promoted to inspector and I was a uniform inspector there for two years in Drahada. And the vacancy came up for a DI and I was asked, would you take up as a detective inspector? And I said, yeah, absolutely. And I had the senior investigating officer's course done and all. So I was well qualified and I had... Like, you know, I had my CID courses done and I was a fully trained scenes of crime examiner. Do you know what I mean? I was well, I ticked all the boxes and that was it. 40:11 And it was during your time there then that was the tragic murder of one of your colleagues, Garda Adrian Donoghue in 2013. Yeah. 40:20 The first day that I was appointed as a detective inspector, I had a murder. It was Nile Dorr was murdered in Dundalk. And that was my initiation into being a DI. Yeah. And talking about hitting the ground running, oh my God. 40:35 What more, that was a, that was. 40:36 That was Nile Dore, he was kicked to death in the street in Dundalk. And we got it solved and it was, and yet again, thinking about thinking outside the box, it was a little piece of DNA that you couldn't even see with your eyes or nothing like that, a piece of skin that was on his clothing that blinked the suspect immediately. with the crime and was able to solve it. And he was charged with the murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter. But that was a fascinating case as well on the basis that I had his t-shirt that was pulled off him by the culprit and the witness said he pulled his t-shirt off from the shoulders. 41:14 So I had the t-shirt when it was recovered, divided into one inch squares from the midriff right up to the shoulders. And I asked the forensic people, what I want in this was to have each and every square individually DNAed. Yeah. And that's what they did, and they came across a DNA, foreign DNA, it wasn't the wearer's DNA, it wasn't the deceased, and it matched with one of the suspects. 41:46 But you had it divided out into different sections, so was the location of his DNA important? 41:51 Yes, it was, because his shoulder was on the, where you would have grabbed his shoulders. And ripped the T-shirt off, yeah. So having all of that together, I said, no, this is a good case. It links the suspect with the murder. 42:05 And I thought to myself, well, if I was the suspect, what would I be thinking? I'd be thinking, well, my DNA, I was spitting at him. 42:12 Yeah. 42:13 I was sweating and I maybe, you know, in the fracket that took place first, And that's how my DNA got there, you know? Yeah. So I went back to the forensic lab and I said, hang on now for a second. 42:25 I'm delighted you found DNA there, but the suspect is going to say I was sweating or I spitted on him or whatever. And they went back and they rethought it out and they'd done more tests. And it was the first time it was done in Ireland. And they said they could now come back and eliminate saliva. 42:43 Mm-hmm. 42:44 And it could eliminate sweat as the source of the DNA. Right. So it had to be a skin particle. Yeah. Which meant touch. Yeah. It was left there by way of touch. Yeah. So that reinforced and strengthened the evidence. But you see the way you have to think outside the box to get that. Yeah. 43:02 But that's like, it was subsequent to that, that Adrian Donoghue, who was one of your team. He was one of my detectives, yes. I mean, that must have been terrible to have to deal with. 43:15 No idea. Yeah. 43:16 Not only on a, you know, on a personal level, but then to be involved in the investigation. 43:23 Yeah, which is something which I often thought about. And if management had, or Let's say, thinking Capon, they would have not had its own colleagues investigate. 43:34 Yeah, you would have think that it would... 43:35 They would have brought in a whole new team from a different division. 43:38 Obviously, we would be there to help and do job and whatever. But it would take the onus of the stress of... you know, trying to deal with your colleague's murder, death, and then trying to investigate as well. 43:50 I remember, like, I mean, it's one of those things, like, it's like, you know, I remember where I was when I heard Veronica Guerin was shot. I remember where I was when I heard Adrian Donoghue had been killed because... 44:01 I was dropping one of the kids down at school or something like that, and I was like, Jesus. 44:05 Decent guy, lovely man. Yeah. Lovely man. Yeah. A lovely, solid bloke. Good family man. Yeah. Good values. 44:14 A good man, like, you know, trained kids at football, and he'd done a lot for the community. Yeah. He was a good guy, like, and he was quiet, you know, but he loved the crack as well, and you'd often have the banter with him, like, you know. What I noticed about him, like any job I ever gave him as a detective inspector, I needed, let's say, a report on this or a report on that. He'd have it done perfectly. Yeah. He was excellent at his job, you know. 44:40 Yeah. 44:41 And it's still hard to believe. Like, it is still hard to believe, you know. 44:45 And it took up until I think it was 2020 before Aaron Brady. Aaron Brady, yeah. He was convicted. Yeah. And was he the main player? 44:59 No, there was five people. 45:01 Yeah. 45:02 And I know all five of them. 45:03 Yes. I know who they are. But only one has been convicted. 45:06 And he, what happened on, you see, we're getting back to the senior investigating officer and getting back to, you know, what decisions are made and the decisions are made and thinking outside the box. 45:18 That particular night, I got two of my sergeants and I asked them, I want you to go next door and make out a list of people who would do this that live in the area, like the people, criminals. They come back with a list of, I don't know, 10 or 15 on it or whatever. And Aaron Brady was about the third or fourth on the list, you know. And I said, I want to, with all the manpower I had there, I divided them up into two, into teams of two. And I made them go and interview each one of these people, like, you know. 45:50 And one particular, John Maroney, who was a sergeant at the time, he's a superintendent now or a chief superintendent, I don't know. And he was there and he says, I have him charged, Aaron Brady. I can take him. I know where he's living and stuff. And I said, grand. So he went off. with a one or two guys to track him down and where he was supposed to be staying he wasn't and he was breaking his his curfew you know so his bail conditions you know so that started saying well you know that's that's he's there he can't put him in we can't put him out he's there and And the next day, John Maroney, who was over the search team, stopped him on the road in a car and questioned him. 46:35 And he told John Maroney lies. And he was in the company of a guy. 46:39 And John Maroney quite cleverly spoke away from him. And he had a different story from Aaron Brady. So it was all beginning to, you know, sort of, look, this is not, I'm not happy here. I said, I'm not happy with this. And then we had a car and this is where the hard graft comes in. We've done checkpoints and we got a witness who said, oh, myself and my husband were driving home. 47:02 We were driving home last night and we passed credit union and then we met this car. Yeah. It was flying. It was airborne. And I know the number plate. I know the car and I know who it belongs to. 47:15 This is the witness telling you this. Witness, yeah. 47:17 You know, and that, when we looked at the CCTV, that was car that was airborne, flying so fast, was the next car after the getaway car from the credit union. So I was thinking, oh, hang on now for a second, there's something happening here, like, you know, and this is, I think, we're fishing in the right pool here, like, you know. And then on top of that, we had a lot of intelligence coming in from crime and security, which was naming Aaron Brady as a suspect in this spec, you know. So you can't ignore all of this, you know. 47:48 Yeah. I think like Aaron Brady's final conviction, it came out... After you'd retired, would that be right? It was a year or two later. 47:56 Yeah, I retired in 2018. 48:00 But there must have been some, you know... Not satisfaction. I know. I remember Christy Mangin, who was the chief superintendent there at the time, and he just said to us, look, we'll have no triumphalism, shouting our horn or slapping or nothing like that. We'll hold our dignity. And he was right. Yeah. And the verdict, and that was it, he was convicted, and we just come outside and we just... 48:22 You know, that was it. Like, you know, that was it. Like, we'd done the job. And what I mean, telling it five years, it was hard graft. Yeah. It was hard graft, even though I was off the investigation for about three years. But it was still hard grafts and I was doing another murder, double murder in the meantime. And I was doing, finishing off on Michael Schein investigation and I was doing, oh, there was lots of things happening. And, you know, there was other suspicious deaths and pits and pieces. 48:54 Like, I mean, yeah, stuff, these things don't happen in a vacuum. There's always other stuff going on. You've had an incredible career. Yeah. 49:02 The experience that you've had in serious crime investigation is, you know, second to none. And like, we're not robots. You know, did it ever get to you? Did it ever? 49:13 No, no, no. But I'll tell you what I've done now. Like, you know, I went to counseling when I retired and all this, that and the other to get certain things off that did bother me. 49:22 One of the things that did bother me, I took an eight-year-old child from the sea that went missing and fell into the sea. And that sort of upset me because I had a daughter at the same age at the time. 49:34 Anyway, look. I mean, they're only human beings, you know. And that was it. 49:40 You know, and I have, since I left, like I've tried to... 49:45 what's the word, become a better man, a better person to get rid of these negative energies and away from me like, you know, and that's working for me. 49:56 Good stuff. And over that career, is there anything in particular that 50:01 sticks out to you as being something you're most proud of or that you say Jesus I did a good job there and I'll tell you a good one now and it sort of sums it up in a way Michael Mad Dog McDonough bet his wife to death in front of his children another narcissist like you know bet his wife in front of the kids And he didn't admit anything. Anyway, it's an interesting case we'll talk about again because there was an element of a first time again in thinking outside the box that nailed him. But anyway, several months after he was convicted, like maybe four or five months after, I got a phone call from the father of the deceased and saying, I want to meet you. 50:43 Myself and my wife want to meet you. And I says, fair enough. And I went and I met them and they bought me a cup of tea and we sat down and I said, you want to talk to me? We want to look you in the eye. And both of them looked at me straight in the eye and said, we want to thank you for everything you did. And that to me was the ultimate, that was the ultimate accolade of providing a service to the public too. And that's it. 51:08 And I'll show you, and I'll bring them the next day or for whatever, if I'm here again, I have got several letters when I retired from victims' families. 51:18 Right. Thanking me for the way I treated them. 51:22 And I think that is, that's it. You don't need any commendations on letters or whatever. That's it, like, you know. 51:28 Like, I mean, like at the end of the day, that goes back to what you said at the start. Empathy and honesty is what you... 51:36 There are four, and these are the four elements that I always stuck by. Four of five. You have to be honest, accountable, respectful, responsible, and professional. And you have to carry damage all the time. If you don't carry damage all the time, you'll slip between the stools. You'll miss things. You'll make a cock of it. That's it. 51:57 No, that's a good lesson to take, Pat. Listen, it's been fascinating talking to you. We could go on talking here. I was going to talk about the Marilyn Wren case where DNA was... 52:10 kind of used for the first time in a murder investigation. We've spoken about, you know, the firsts with regards to phone evidence and internet evidence. It's been fascinating. And I just want to thank you very much for coming in. And I do hope we have you back again because we could be talking here. 52:26 I hope your listeners enjoyed it. Thanks a million, Pat. Okay. 52:30 Thank you for listening to this episode of Lines of Inquiry Case Notes. If you enjoyed the podcast, please consider giving us a five-star rating and review, sharing it to your story on social media, leaving a comment below or simply telling a friend you enjoyed it. Your support helps us make more episodes. 52:49 If you'd like to get in touch, you can email linesofinquiry at goloudnow.com. Lines of Inquiry is presented by me, John Sweetman. The podcast is created by Darren Cleary. Our executive producer is Owen Brennan. Aoife Plunkett is our producer. 53:05 Remember, in the end, everything done in the dark comes to light. 53:14 Case Notes. 53:15 A go loud original. 53:17 With Finance Solutions. For expert mortgage advice, visit financesolutions.ie today. Kegra Limited Trading as Finance Solutions is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.