Crimes that have stayed with you for years

Hammer Archer wrote: »

For people around my parents age in the area I grew up, it was the Una Lynskey abduction and murder.
She was a 19 year old civil servant who lived on the Fairyhouse side of Ratoath in Meath. In October 1971, she got off a bus from Dublin at the end of the lane she lived on and started to make the short walk home. She never made it there.
Around the time of her disappearance, a black car was seen parked on the lane she lived on. Local Gardaí knew that a local teenager, Dick Donnelly, owned a black Zypher and came to the conclusion that he and two other locals, Martin Conmey and Martin Kerrigan, abducted and probably murdered her.

Several witnesses stated that they didn't see these three guys in the car but subsequently claimed that they were assaulted by the Gardaí in Trim so that they'd change their statement to say they had seen them.
The three accused were also assaulted and deprived of sleep by the Gardaí. I think even Una's mother was brought into the interrogation to try and get them to say where the body was. Two of them signed a vague statement after nearly two days without sleep saying that she somehow ended up dead. Obviously, given that Una's mother was shown who the suspects were and were assured by the Gardaí that they had killed her, the wider Lynskey family now knew.

In December, Una Lynskey's body was found in the Dublin mountains. Just over a week later, Martin Kerrigan was bundled into a car by Una's brothers and her cousin, driven to the mountains and murdered. They were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 3 years each.
The two remaining accused, Conmey and Donnelly, were both found guilty of the manslaughter of Una and were also jailed for three years. Donnelly was released on appeal but Conmey's conviction stuck. It wasn't until 2010 that Conmey's conviction was quashed and in 2014 it was declared a miscarriage of justice.

It turned out that there were a number of reports of a similar black car with a UK reg around the Dublin area. One witness reported seeing a woman struggling in a black car in a petrol station on the Naas Road on the night Una Lynskey disappeared. These reports were ignored by the Gardaí on the case as they zeroed in on the three innocent men from the start. Una Lynskey's murderer was never found.

TG4 produced an excellent documentary on the case and on Martin Conmey's fight to clear his name.
https://www.tg4.ie/en/player/home/?pid=5830752729001&teideal=Finn%C3%A9&series=Finn%C3%A9&dlft=35

coinop wrote: »

Channon Gail Christian, aged 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom, Jr., aged 23, were from Knoxville, Tennessee. They were kidnapped on the evening of January 6, 2007, when Christian's vehicle was carjacked, and taken to a rental house, where both of them were raped, tortured, and murdered.



Newsom's body was discovered near a set of nearby railroad tracks. He had been bound, blindfolded, gagged, and stripped naked from the waist down. He had been shot in the back of the head, neck, and back, and his body had been set on fire.

Christian died after hours of torture, sustaining traumatic brain injuries and suffering injuries to her vagina, anus, and mouth due to repeated sexual assault. Before killing her, in an effort to remove DNA evidence, her attackers poured bleach down her throat and scrubbed her body with it. She was bound with curtains and strips of bedding, with her face covered with a trash bag and her body stashed in five large trash bags. These were placed inside a residential waste disposal unit and covered with sheets and garbage from Wendy's. The medical examiner said there was evidence that Christian slowly suffocated to death.

Four males and one female were arrested, charged, and convicted in the case, four of whom had multiple prior felony convictions.



What crime cases were so horrible that they have stuck in your mind years after reading about them?

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Karen Buckley, murdered in Glasgow. A very sad case.

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

The attack on the couple in Cratloe, Co. Clare in 2004. (link) stands out for me, because it's relatively local, I've been in the carpark it happened in a number of times, and the perertrators still crop up in the news for continued scumbaggery from time to time.

A couple in their 30s in the carpark of the popular woods were attacked by the 5 guys wielding a golf club, a screw driver, a wheel brace and a shovel, and forced out of their car. They hit they woman when she refused to give one of the scumbags a kiss. The man worked as a bouncer, and had a retractable baton. The scumbags assumed he was a Garda, shouting "he's a cop, do him", and instead of this making them back off, they beat him and bundled him into the boot of his car. While locked in there, the five scumbags took turns raping the woman on the bonnet, one of the shouting "me next!". When thw woman tried to resist, they threatened to burn the car with him locked inside it. They took a break then to open the boot and beat the man again with the golf club. At some stage, he managed to escape and flag down a passing motorist.

Three of the perpetrators were 16. One was 24. The final one was just 14 when they carried out the attack. One of the 16 year olds, Thomas O'Neill, was described as the ringleader of the gang in court.

O'Neill was sentenced to 10 years, but when he got out, he shacked up with April Collins, who was previously a partner of notorious Limerick gangster and total scumbag Ger Dundon. She later gave evidence against the Dundons, resulting in their imprisonment and the collapse of the gang.

Apologies for the Sun link, but here's the happy scumbag couple, not a care in the world: https://www.thesun.ie/news/1874348/april-collins-evil-rapist-hubby-slashed-in-the-back-in-a-vicious-attack-leaving-him-fearing-for-his-safety/

In contrast, one of the others convicted of the attack and rape hanged himself in prison, leaving a note apologising for his crimes.

https://www.herald.ie/news/rapist-says-sorry-before-hanging-himself-in-cell-27998881.html

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Two similar crimes stand out to me - both occurring around the same time in Dublin, and exposing the society we have become.

First, the murder of Pawel Kalite and Mariusz Szwajkos by David Curran in 2008 (very briefly mentioned upthread). Two Polish men who came here to work hard and contribute to the country. Features classic symptoms of what we are told is minor crime, "just" anti social behaviour etc - man goes to chipper and gets deliberately bumped into by "children" loitering outside and a minor scuffle ensues. As is often the case, the situation was inflamed by a teenage girl (who never saw the inside of a jail) who rang scumbag David Curran (just 17 at the time) who arrived and stabbed both men in the head with a screwdriver.

The murder of those two chaps received a lot of attention at the time, but I think the later (2010) killing of Lukasz Rzeszutko was in some ways almost more horrifying but it got far less attention - probably because there were no witnesses (unlike the case above). Again, a hard working Polish man struck down by scumbags loitering looking for trouble. In this case, there wasn't even a rudimentary "reason" for the attack as in the above case - Lukasz was walking to work (at about 4.30am) when three scumbags decided to "give him a few slaps" on the pretext of asking for a cigarette - they did it "for a buzz" according to one. He was so badly beaten that his workmates (who found him) didn't recognise him and part of his brain came out his nose. Despite this, only one of the attackers (just 18 at the time) was found guilty of murder, with the other two (one with 55 previous convictions, and out on bail at the time) getting away with a manslaughter conviction.

I think both cases shine a light on Irish society and what they reveal ain't pretty. Young, unemployed scumbags hanging around just looking to cause trouble, unmolested by Gardai and given a life of plenty by a ridiculously generous social welfare system - these people's behaviour and crimes are excused by the social care system and the media (and some posters on here) and they prey upon the very workers that pay their social welfare. Just look at the ages of the murderers - 17 and 18 - still kids in many respects yet so far down the road of scumbaggery that there is no turning back - yet many in NGOs and the media refer to these people as 'vulnerable'!

spurious wrote: »

The audio tape of the Darkley shootings was played on the news accompanied by pictures of the inside of the Church. That may have been why it had such a lasting effect on me.