Category: Domestic Violence

10 – Catherine Nevin: The Black Widow (Part 2)

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Black Widow, Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, IRA/Paramilitary links, Irish Crime, murder, Women Who Kill

In the second and final instalment of the Black Widow story, the Gardai ramp up their investigation into her, and she is finally charged with the murder of her husband, and conspiracy to commit murder. The trial took place in 2000, and lasted a whopping 62 days. After three attempts to start, it finally got under way and Willie McClean, Gerry Heapes and John Jones recounted their tales to the jury.

We also examine the aftermath of the whole sorry affair, including Justice O’Buachalla coming under scrutiny in the Murphy Inquiry, and the various appeals that Catherine brought before the courts, before finally discussing the subject that was closest to Catherine’s heart: money.

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10 – Catherine Nevin: The Black Widow (Part 1)

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Black Widow, Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, IRA/Paramilitary links, Irish Crime, murder, Women Who Kill

The weekend of St Patrick’s Day, 1996, Tom Nevin was found lying dead from a gunshot wound to the chest in the kitchen of his pub, Jack White’s in the popular seaside town of Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow.  His wife, Catherine, had sounded the alarm and when the Gardai arrived they found her bound by the wrists. She said that intruders had entered the pub, looking for jewellery.  But something wasn’t quite right, the scene seemed staged, and soon the Gardai began unravelling a web of deceit constructed carefully over nearly 10 years of a plan to have Tom Nevin killed. All eyes now turned to Catherine. Was she really a grieving widow? Or a Black Widow who had her husband killed to get control of their assets?

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9 – The Scissor Sisters & the murder of Farah Swaleh Noor

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, Irish Crime, murder, Women Who Kill

Farah Swaleh Noor was an apparent Somalian refugee to Ireland and disappeared on the 20th March 2005. Later that month, and unidentified male body was pulled from the Royal Canal on Dublin city’s north side in pieces which had been dumped in black plastic rubbish bags. The body – missing its head-  was identified as Farah Noor, and it soon became apparent that his girlfriend Kathleen Mulhall and her two daughters, Linda and Charlotte, were involved in the gruesome murder, dismemberment and disposal of his body.

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5 – Rachel O’Reilly: Murder of a Mother

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, Irish Crime

In October of 2004, Rachel O’Reilly was brutally attacked in her North County Dublin home. Initially, the Gardai treated the crime as a burglary gone wrong, but soon it became clear that this was no random attack. Her husband, Joe O’Reilly, appeared in the media appealing for information about his wife’s death, and given his strange demeanour, the public began to question, who really was responsible for the murder of Rachel O’Reilly?

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