Unsolved Irish Mysteries.

Should there be a separate thread for this case? It's taking up the whole thread at this point.

Was Annie blaming the boyfriend she was having a affair/relationship/friendship with ...was she not a willing participant in this affair/relationship/friendship or was she coerced to participate

The thrust of your post seems to be that its not a great deal of damage. I can tell you after a couple of decades of being a contractor (in the past) that any cutting, breaking or removing of floors WRECKS a house in terms of the work that has to be done to put it right. Its expensive and takes time. Dust damage is appalling.

On something I looked at recently *as an observer, the decision was made to refurbish sash windows rather than replace on the basis that the wrecking/dust caused by removing the old ones would require the entire house to be redecorated.

Yes, he went on to marry this girlfriend. I suspected she may have come from a well off background. I also suspect that he did not want his relationship with her scuppered as she brought many assets to the table. He most certainly did not want Annie blabbing a guilty conscience to her. I also notice the person of interest is a shadowy figure in the background, almost as if he has chosen not to be seen.

As for the search in Clondalkin, maybe the family had gone on holidays around Saint Patrick's Day and the property presented an opportunity. The garden looks full of ground ivy, pretty but one would hardly notice if it had been disturbed and also tools may have to be borrowed and replaced and may have had soil dna from elsewhere.

Id imagine it's not an easy task for one person to move a body from one location to another without been seen. Unless Annie was killed in a private house with garage access maybe with no one else around?

She could also have been killed in an isolated rural area if she went there with somebody in a car and a row ensued.

hardly worth starting a new thread now….given that noting significant was found at the dig site i would imagine this story will peter out soon enough.

Maybe just a separate thread for obsessing about damage that may or may not have occured to a house, and the gardaí's imaginary refusal to put it all right.

I dont think her husband pulled the trigger, or was present, but the AGS might be of the opinion that he hired someone to kill her and make it look like a robbery gone wrong.

CATHERINE FEGAN

As James Livingstone made his way into the bedroom of his house in Malahide, the scene that greeted him would change his life forever.

His 56-year-old wife Grace, the mother of his two children, was lying face down on the bed. Her feet and hands had been bound and her mouth was gagged with adhesive tape.

She had been shot in the back of the head with a shotgun Mr Livingstone owned, which he kept in the house and was later found in the garden.

It was December 1992 and the case, of the high-ranking tax investigator who owned the very weapon that was used to kill his wife became the most high-profile murder of its time.

The initial investigation identified Mr Livingstone as the main suspect, but no evidence emerged to support garda suspicions. There was no sign of a burglary and no apparent motive was uncovered. No one was ever prosecuted for the murder.

Mr Livingstone has always protested his innocence. He was with a coll­eague at the time his wife was killed, arriving home at about 5.30pm. He has always contended she was killed because of his work as a special investigator pursuing underworld figures for tax, and he forwarded names of suspects to gardaí.

More than 30 years later, the murder of Mrs Livingstone remains one of Ireland's most unsettling mysteries - an enduring cold case marked by missteps, suspicion and controversy.

Mr Livingstone was laid to rest this week. His death marks another sad milestone in the quest to uncover who killed his wife and why.

On the morning of December 7, 1992, Mr Livingstone left to go to work. Mrs Livingstone went to mass at 9am and did some shopping on the way home.

The couple and their two children lived at 37 The Moorings, in a small cul-de-sac. Daughter Tara, then 22, was in France.

Mrs Livingstone chatted with a neighbour in the driveway shortly before noon. Another neighbour, Anne Watchhorn, who lived across the road, spoke with her for 20 minutes on the porch before 2pm. At 2.10pm, Ms Watchhorn went home and Ms Livingstone went back inside.

Ena Marisa Brennan, then 17, lived a few doors down from the Livingstones in number 32.

She walked home from school with friends and stopped to chat before turning into the cul-de-sac.

It was around 4.30pm. She noticed a young man walking towards them. He turned into the cul-de-sac. He wore a beige trenchcoat, black boots and had mousey, collar-length hair. She thought he was about 20.

Her friend, Hilary Maguire, noticed him too. She later said he was around six-foot-tall, his hair was blond and the long coat was "fawn”.

Ena Marisa said she overtook the man outside number 39, 40 or 41 and continued on past the Livingstones' house towards her home.

When she looked back, he was gone.

Ena Marisa's mother, also named Ena, was in her kitchen browning meat for a casserole for the evening meal when she heard a loud noise. She wasn't sure about the time. At first she told gardaí she heard it between 3.45pm and 4.15pm, but later said it was 4.20pm because she had looked at the cooker clock.

At number 36, the Livingstones' immediate neighbour, Ann Egan, was packing away her Christmas shopping when she heard a "very loud booming noise” that "echoed through the house”. She put the time at around 4.30pm.

Margaret O'Sullivan, who lived on a street parallel to The Moorings, heard the noise about 4.30pm too.

Across the road from the Livingstones, Philip McGivney, a landscape gardener, finished work felling treetops at number 27.

He got into his van, but had to turn it, so drove into the driveway across the road.

As he drove in, his headlights shone into the porch and he saw a man standing inside. He said the man was in his early 20s with dark collar-length hair and of thin build. He put the time at around 4.40pm.

A short time later, shortly after 5.30pm, Mr Livingstone pulled into his driveway and turned the key in his front door. The house was quiet and in darkness.

The bedroom upstairs was dark too. Mrs Livingstone was lying dead on the bed.

Black insulating tape had been used to bind her hands and feet and a strip of it covered her mouth. She had been shot in the head with a shotgun that was later found in a hedge outside. Her husband immediately raised the alarm.

A local doctor who went to the house made an assessment that Mrs Livingstone had been dead for around two hours, but state pathologist John Harbison, who arrived five hours later, thought the time of death was closer to 6pm.

Nobody who had come to the house after Mr Livingstone raised the alarm reported smelling any cordite, which would have lingered in the air after the gun was fired.

Prof Harbison said later he could not argue with the opinion of the doctor who had pronounced Ms Livingstone dead in his assertion that she was killed at around 4pm.

Mr Livingstone was a keen outdoor sports enthusiast and owned eight guns. Of the eight, four were unlicensed. Almost three months after his wife's murder, he was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm.

While in custody, investigators allegedly showed him photos of his wife's body and made cruel comments about his children. He was released without charge.

In 1994, a review of the original murder inquiry was carried out by Superintendent Tom Connolly and given to the garda's crime and security branch.

The likelihood that Mr Livingstone had murdered his wife was "very slim”, the review found.

One of the key issues highlighted was the existence of a thumbmark found on the adhesive tape used to bind Mrs Livingstone.

The mark was discovered on the sticky side of the tape by garda technical experts and extensive comparisons with fingerprint records at garda headquarters failed to find a match.

Supt Connolly also revisited five charity workers who collected money in The Moorings between 4pm and 6pm on the day of the murder. Their fingerprints had been taken, but not from the correct finger, according to the superintendent.

Only four were available when the review team went to re-take them. The fifth had moved back to England - he too was tracked down. His charity colleagues accused him of stealing - which he denied - and he had convictions for theft.

He proved a negative match for the fingerprints.

Supt Connolly's review concluded that Mrs Livingstone was murdered in her bedroom between 4.30pm and 5pm. Mr Livingstone accused gardaí of having an "irrational fixation”, and the family sued the State.

In April 2008, the case was settled before completion in the High Court, and a statement was issued to the family, saying Mr Livingstone "is entitled to the full and unreserved presumption of innocence”.

Last Tuesday, Mr Livingstone was buried beside his wife and their daughter Maeve, who died at 10 weeks old.

The case officially remains open, but is classified as cold, with periodical reviews by gardaí yielding no new leads or suspects.

The thumbmark on the tape has never been identified. The man neighbours say they saw with collar-length hair and a long coat was never traced.

An Garda Síochána was contacted for comment.

Very odd that the car was never mentioned in any news reports at the time. Would that not be easy enough for the gardai to follow up - tax office, insurance, write-off, abandoned, found burned out etc? Unless she had sold it to one of the family, she could have needed funds for rent or college fees.

Makes you wonder was Annie's car the "borrowed car" her father was referring to. Also, would be interesting to know which car was used to pick up Nancy at the airport. Did the brothers not have their own cars back then? If they did, why the need to borrow one and rent another. Maybe the partner(s) had a car.

Interesting to read that a file will be prepared for the DPP in the Annie McCarrick case. Although I believe files were prepared for the DPP in other missing persons cases too, Fiona Pender, Deirdre Jacob.

"Privately, gardaí acknowledge the outcome of the chief suspect’s arrest, and the search in Clondalkin is a disappointment. A source said nothing of significant evidential value was found during the excavation.A murder charge remains elusive, given Ms McCarrick’s remains have not been found and the suspect denied all involvement in her disappearance and death.

“The chief suspect can be rearrested if new evidence comes to light,” the source said, “but at present there are no major developments in this investigation. But a file will be prepared for the DPP.”

Gardaí will also have to rebuild the parts of the Clondalkin house and garden they ripped apart in the search for Ms McCarrick’s remains, with the State footing the bill."

https://m.independent.ie/news/as-new-search-ends-in-disappointment-is-it-too-late-to-catch-annie-mccarricks-killer/a720232945.html

https://archive.ph/7HI7v

seems like a sensible approach to costs.

So if they had found a body, the current owners would have to foot the bill?

No, because the current owner have nothing to do with Annie's disappearance. It's different with Satchwell he was found guilty of murdering Tina and burying her body in the house.