Schiller / Marry The Ice House Murder

The Killing of Irene White
Main
ISBN: 978-1-80546-385-6
Verlag: Allen & Unwin
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

Irene White was 43 years old when she was found murdered at her home in Dundalk in April 2005. In one of the most vicious and senseless killings in Irish history, Irene was stabbed 34 times. While two men were convicted of the murder in 2019, it was clear they were just carrying out orders. Former Garda detective Pat Marry worked for over a decade on the case, and here he outlines the various obstacles that plagued the investigation, as well as the eventual breakthroughs that brought her killers to justice. But while the mastermind remains at large, is the case truly closed?

After being turned away by An Garda Síochána at 17 for being too young, Pat Marry joined the force eight years later and went on to investigate some of Ireland's most high profile cases. Robin Schiller is a journalist for Mediahuis Ireland covering Independent.ie, the Irish Independent and the Sunday Independent.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Schiller, Robin

Marry, Pat

Leseproben

2

ICE HOUSE

The White family home was a modern two-storey flatroofed house, located just outside of Dundalk town centre. The driveway at the front looked out onto Demesne Road, and a large garden at the rear of the property was used by Irene to grow organic vegetables and herbs. The seven-foot-high rear boundary wall backed onto Ice House Hill, a 12-acre public park which got its name from a doublevaulted chamber located on the grounds that had been used to store blocks of ice and food. It had once belonged to Dundalk House and the Earl of Clanbrassil, dating back to the 17th century, but had been left derelict until 1994, when restoration work was commissioned by the town council and funded by a local family.

The works carried out on Ice House Hill included the integration of the parkland perimeter with the surrounding neighbourhood, the burying of overhead cables underground, and the inclusion of gravel walkways that criss-crossed through the park. Four entrances were created for the green area: two at the O’Hanlon Park estate, one from Demesne Road, and one from the Pearse Park estate. The restoration work resulted in the park becoming a popular amenity for walkers and joggers, who used the mile-long pathway in the park. It would also prove a favoured location for local youths and drunkards to hang out. To the other side of Ice House was the large yard owned by Eircom, while a short walk up the road on Park Drive was Hynes Shop, run by Tony Hynes and his wife, Jennifer, who came to know the Whites who regularly used their store over the years.

Alan was interested in selling the house to Eircom, but while negotiations were still in their infancy, problems persisted within the marital home. In March 2004, Irene accused Alan of leaving the family without money to pay for heating oil over the course of two days. When she confronted him about this at the Phoenix Pub in Dundalk, he was said to have made a laugh out of her in front of other punters. The following month, with no signs of matters improving, Alan White drew up what he termed the ‘Good Friday Agreement’ – a deed of separation. The plan was for this to be put in place out of court, instead of the separation terms being decided by a judge. Among other things, it set out the division of any money derived from the sale of Ice House, advising that the couple each put away €35,000 from the sale for the children’s education and upkeep. Ultimately, however, the couple couldn’t agree on the terms of Alan’s ‘Good Friday Agreement’.

A month later there was trouble between Alan White and his stepdaughter. On 23 April 2004, she was treated by a local doctor for an injury to her eye. It was alleged that Alan pushed her and that when she went into the kitchen he followed her and hit her head against a kitchen press. While she received medical treatment from a local doctor for her injuries, no formal complaint was made to gardaí about the incident, which Alan denied happened. That May, Anne Delcassian had returned to Louth for a civil court hearing relating to another cottage in Omeath. The sisters hadn’t spoken much since Maureen had willed the property Ceol to Irene, but they were always cordial. Anne met Irene on that visit home and would later recall how her sister ‘seemed in good form’ and ‘never mentioned any difficulties she was having with Alan’.

Two months later, in July, Alan White had been at a funeral and returned home at around 7 a.m. the following morning. Irene went into Jennifer’s room and picked up a radio, which had been borrowed from her friend Kerri Hynes, and brought it into her own room. Later recounting this incident to gardaí, Jennifer told them:

I was dozing off and Mam put the radio on and played some weird music fairly loud. This was because Alan had stayed out all night. Mam went downstairs and left the music blaring upstairs. Alan came stomping out of his room and into Mam’s room, and he grabbed the radio. When I saw him, I ran into the room to try and stop Alan damaging the radio. Alan opened the window, and I was shouting at him not to throw it out because it wasn’t mine. He threw the radio out the landing window and it ended up in the side garden. I think Alan went back to bed. After that I brought the radio back into the house and the tape cover was broken and one of the speaker covers was broken. I could still play the radio and the CD.

By this time Alan White had also purchased a cottage that he was renovating in Knockbridge, a rural village outside of Dundalk. He felt that his new property needed security, expressing concern to his friends about a particular individual potentially causing damage to the property. Alan decided to remove the extensive security system at Ice House, with plans to install it in the Knockbridge cottage, despite the fact that the family were still living in Ice House. That autumn, Irene decided enough was enough. The ill-treatment she was being subjected to by her husband, and his worsening behaviour towards her daughter, was something she could no longer take. In August she decided to initiate her own separation proceedings.

The plans to sell Ice House were still going ahead, to the point where a purchase price had been proposed by Eircom. They were offering Alan White €925,000 for the home, well above market value and the £66,000 (€72,000) mortgage that had been taken out on the property in 1995. As Irene also lived there with their children, Eircom insisted that she should be involved in the sale and that nothing would proceed without her. In late September, an Eircom representative met with Alan and Irene at the Fairways Hotel in Dundalk, where a lengthy discussion took place about the sale of Ice House. While progress had been made, there were concerns about timelines being met to complete the deal. The Eircom official would later say that they felt a price had been agreed, subject to terms and conditions.

Within the marital home the catalogue of incidents continued to build, and that October Irene alleged that her husband had purposely knocked a plate of food out of her hand. In another incident weeks later, it was claimed that Alan White had thrown another radio, which Jennifer had been listening to while doing homework, out of the back door. When Jennifer later spoke to gardaí about this incident, she told them: ‘He started saying smart comments to me and he was winding me up and I was trying to wind him up as well. He said my boyfriend was a scumbag and I told him a woman beater was worse than that. He lifted the radio and threw it out the back door. I was a bit scared of this.’ The boyfriend Alan White mentioned was Angelo O’Riordan, a local youth from Dundalk who had come to the attention of gardaí in the past. Jennifer had begun dating him that summer, and it was a relationship that her mother and stepfather didn’t approve of.

On 4 November 2004, Eircom arranged a meeting with Irene and Alan, as well as their legal representatives, to push forward with the sale of Ice House. The meeting appeared productive, and all parties were of the belief that the sale was near completion, with a draft contract agreed in which Irene would be a co-signatory. This was also accepted by Eircom, who included a consent clause in the draft contract. While positive progress had been made in this respect, hostilities continued over the festive period that year. It was alleged that on 13 December Alan returned home under the influence of alcohol and, during an argument with Irene’s daughter, took her mobile phone. Later describing this incident to gardaí, Jennifer recalled:

Myself and Mam were in the sitting room and Alan came in and took my phone and brought it upstairs. I went up after Alan and tried to get my phone back. I saw a phone that I thought was mine in Alan’s pocket. I went to grab it and it fell on the floor. It was Alan’s phone. I bent down to grab the phone and Alan jammed me against the door frame with his leg. He took his phone and when I got to get up Alan tried to push me down the stairs. I grabbed the first thing I saw, which was Alan’s shirt pocket, and then I grabbed the banister. Mam came up the stairs and said she would get the phone back, but she didn’t.

Jennifer also said that the following morning Alan came in to her and demanded €20 in compensation for the damage done to his shirt. If this was paid over, he told her, she would get her phone back, and he claimed that Jennifer had assaulted him. While gardaí initially believed that Jennifer would make a formal complaint about this incident, the phone was soon returned, and the matter ended there. Just two days later, Alan White left the family and went to live with his mother at her house in St Malachy’s Villas. His departure was short-lived, and on the afternoon of 19 December, he returned to visit Damhan and Dairine at Ice House. Irene had gone out to drop off some plastics at a recycling facility and, when she returned, found Jennifer in a distressed state. Her daughter told her that Alan had caught her thumb in the handle of the radio, injuring it.

This time Jennifer decided to make a formal complaint against her stepfather, with gardaí investigating the incident. Alan White was charged with common assault of Jennifer and was subsequently found guilty of the offence the following year. He was spared a criminal conviction and instead received the Probation Act, an unofficial warning given by the courts to a first-time offender that spares them a criminal conviction or sentence.

That month, Irene once again met with Garda Colin Dempsey and outlined how she...