The Shankill Butchers

by Martin Dillon

  Large’s testimony confirms that the killers did not learn the name of their victim. Murphy entered the house some minutes after Mr M. had finally killed Donegan and told Large and Mr M. to leave the premises and board the taxi, which was parked outside with Cowan in the driving seat. Large observed Murphy emerge from the house five minutes later and walk to a Cortina which was parked behind the taxi. Murphy climbed into the front passenger seat. Large’s testimony did not reveal that the Cortina also contained a driver, Mr A.

  Cowan, acting on Murphy’s orders, drove away from Brookmount Street and proceeded to Glencairn Way in the Glencairn Estate where he stopped the taxi. Murphy and Mr A. arrived a short time later and, while Mr A. remained in the Cortina, Murphy approached the taxi and ordered Cowan and the others to leave the vehicle. At this point Murphy returned to the Cortina and, from the boot of the car, produced a can of petrol and the broken spade which was used to kill Donegan. He placed the spade in the taxi, sprinkled the vehicle with petrol and set it alight. Mr A. drove Murphy and his accomplices to the Shankill Road. By setting fire to the taxi, Murphy was destroying crucial evidence, though there was still the matter of disposing of Donegan’s body. As for making phone calls, Murphy knew he would be obliged to wait for the name of his victim to be relayed on the radio news the following morning.

  When the killers reached the Shankill, Large left the car and went to spend the night at Cowan’s house. Murphy returned to his home in Brookmount Street knowing that Donegan’s body was in a house opposite. The Cortina driven by Mr A. was the property of a convicted prisoner, James Irvine, who was in custody but had placed the vehicle in the care of a man whom I will refer to as Mr N. Police notes regarding this vehicle read as follows:

  On the night of October 23 Mr N. had consumed a lot of drink. At 12.15 A.M. on October 24 he reported to police that his white Cortina car, registration T019395, had been stolen from outside his house. On the afternoon of this date it was located at Highdene Crescent, close to where Mr N. resides. This vehicle was then returned to – Mr N.’s home. Mr N. then went to various Loyalist clubs on the Shankill, during which time he met and talked to members of paramilitary groups and was instructed to leave the Cortina at his house and leave the keys with a member of the family. He did in fact leave the car outside his home, giving his eighteen-year-old daughter, –, custody of the keys before continuing on a drinking spree, finally returning home at 7.00 P.M. whereupon he discovered that the Cortina was not parked outside his house. On enquiring from his daughter as to the whereabouts of his car, he was told that two men had called during his absence, collected the keys and drove off. He then went to bed but was awakened at 3.00 A.M. by his daughter saying the police had found the car. He was arrested and questioned but released without charge. It is believed that Mr N. is connected with the UVF who use the Cortina as a staff car. He is a drunk who performs the role of messenger for the price of an occasional drink.

  The fact that the car was taken by Murphy early that evening confirms that he had a killing in mind. A police document suggests that Mr N. could have been considered to be in breach of the 1967 Criminal Law Act because of his involvement I cannot explain why he was not charged but I would speculate that the police intended to use him as a witness in return for not pressing charges.

  With the disappearance of Sergeant Cochrane and Joseph Donegan, the two families who were sharing a similar agony conveyed sympathy to each other. Demands were made by churchmen and politicians on both sides for the release of the two men. Provisional Sinn Fein reacted with predictable duplicity: ‘While we sympathize with the Cochrane family we must point out that Sergeant Cochrane is a serving British Army Officer who is well aware of the risk. Joe Donegan is an innocent man kidnapped by Loyalists simply because he is a Catholic.’

  Once again the Provisionals had callously demonstrated that they were neither interested in listening to pleas for clemency nor concerned about how they might be viewed by the Protestant community.

  Joe Donegan’s death did not prevent Murphy attempting to hoodwink the public into believing that Donegan would be released safe and well in return for Sergeant Cochrane. On Sunday at 1.40 P.M. Murphy made a phone call to Cormac Boomer, a member of the Social and Democratic Labour Party, who recalls:

  I returned to my home to find my wife, Alice, speaking on the phone. She signalled to me to take the receiver from her and I could tell by her expression that she was frightened. I took the receiver, identified myself, enquired who was calling and asked if I could be of assistance. From that point the following conversation took place:

  – Are you Cormac Boomer?

  – Yes.

  – Can you get in touch with the Workers’ Party?

  – I probably can but why do you ask and who are you?

  – Listen. We have Donegan and we want you to tell Mary McMahon of the Workers’ Party to go on television and radio and make an appeal to the Provos to release Cochrane. Do you understand?

  – Yes. But why the Workers’ Party and why Mary McMahon?

  – Mary McMahon is the only one these people will listen to. She has contacts and they respect her.

  – What do you mean she has contacts? Have you tried to contact her or the Workers’ Party direct?

  Cormac Boomer recalls that at this point in the conversation the pitch of the caller’s voice intensified and the caller said: ‘Listen you, this conversation has went on long enough and is being terminated. You have your instructions. Contact Mary McMahon. We have Donegan and if the Provos do not release Cochrane by midnight we will put a bullet in his head. Do you understand?’

  Before the caller went off the line, Cormac Boomer courageously expressed his disgust: ‘There is not much to choose between you and the Provos. You are all bloody heroes.’

  The conversation was not hurried at any point and, according to Boomer, the male caller’s voice appeared distorted. Boomer was convinced that the call was made from a private line. In fact, it was made by Murphy from the club in Rumford Street. Two similar calls were made by him to the home of Father Desmond Wilson who lived beside the Donegan family. Father Wilson was on holiday but a friend answered the calls and during each of them Murphy claimed to be speaking on behalf of the UVF, which suggests that he was acting with the knowledge of the leadership. The UVF leaders did know about the abduction of Donegan from media reports but were not told at that stage that he was dead. In these latter calls, Murphy demanded that the Roman Catholic Cardinal, Thomas O’Fiaich, should be contacted to beg for the release of Cochrane. Murphy ended the first call with the words ‘A dead UDR man is a dead Donegan,’ and in the second call he threatened that if matters were not resolved to his satisfaction he would dump the body of Joseph Donegan on the doorstep of the Donegan family home.

  On Sunday lunchtime Large heard from Murphy that he was required to assist with the removal of Donegan’s body from 65 Brookmount Street and was to proceed there immediately to receive further orders. Large later told police that when he arrived at the house, he found himself in the presence of a man unknown to him; like many of Murphy’s previous accomplices, he was lying. He knew that Mr A. was the ‘unknown man’. Mr A. told Large to return to the house at 7 P.M., when the body would be removed via an alleyway at the rear of the house to a waiting car. While he was talking to Mr A., Large saw Donegan’s body, which was at this time wrapped in a blanket with the feet protruding and was still on the floor of the yard.

  When he returned at 7 P.M. Mr A. was present, and the two of them carried the corpse into the alleyway where they expected Cowan to be waiting in a car with the boot already open. As they stood in the alleyway holding the corpse they observed Cowan experiencing difficulty in reversing the car. Suddenly a young couple walked past the entrance to the alleyway and Cowan, fearing they had seen the body, drove off. Large and Mr A. simply abandoned the corpse and ran off. Murphy was angered by this bungled operation but realized his accomplices could not return to his house for fear the police had bee
n informed.

  The following morning, several shipyard workers making their way to work discovered the body. One, who thought he had passed a bundle of discarded clothes, retraced his steps to see a pair of feet protruding from a blanket.

  When police arrived on the scene they found Murphy’s back door lying open and they proceeded to search the premises. Blood was spattered over the ceiling, walls and floor of the kitchen and teeth with the roots attached were lying on the floor. In a small room leading to the yard, they found more blood and teeth.

  When I was shown the photographs which were taken at the time I was horrified and sickened by the evidence of bestiality. One of the photographs depicted a teddy bear lying on a bedroom floor, and this symbol of innocence juxtaposed against the surrounding images of indescribable evil was both macabre and chilling.

  By 9.00 A.M. that day television cameras arrived to record the scenes at Brookmount Street, where people were staring down the alleyway. One of the detectives from C Division told me that, while he was watching news film of the murder scene on television that evening, he identified Lenny Murphy as one of the spectators. Police officers at the scene of the crime also recognized Murphy, and he was arrested at 9.30 A.M.

  The Pathologist’s report found that there were twenty lacerations to Donegan’s head and body, and bruising and abrasions to most of his limbs. The pathologist concluded that the multiple injuries to the limbs would not have caused death but the combined effects of the severe injuries to the head, face and neck could have been the cause of death. He would have lost consciousness from severe internal bleeding and died during a period of coma, though there is no way of knowing whether he was dead when Large and Mr M. left him in the early hours of Sunday. The post-mortem found that there were only three teeth left in his mouth, numerous fractures of facial bones, ribs, skull and thyroid cartilage. The pathologist deduced that blows, probably from a fist, were delivered to the neck and throat and would have caused temporary respiratory difficulties.

  On the Monday morning the Donegan family, like the Cochranes, were sitting at home anxiously awaiting news of their loved one. Anne Donegan has said that when news reached them of a body having been found in the Shankill area, they suspected it was their father. She told a Belfast Telegraph reporter: ‘We have come to accept that this body is our Daddy. We only hope now that Mr Cochrane is still alive and they will release him.’ The same reporter asked Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein for a statement about Sergeant Cochrane and was told: ‘We have been trying since Friday to get clarification of the condition of Sergeant Cochrane and of the IRA’s intentions towards him. Our failure to get clarification arises directly from the heavy presence of British Army and RUC in the area. As soon as we get clarification we will ask the IRA to issue a statement.’

  Seamus Mallon of the SDLP reacted to this statement with anger and dismay: ‘Those who abducted Mr Cochrane are as responsible for the death of Mr Donegan as surely as if they themselves had battered the poor man to death. For the Sinn Fein to try to tell us they cannot contact the IRA is a blatant lie.’

  RUC Headquarters issued a statement echoing some of the points made by Seamus Mallon: ‘It is impossible for anyone in Northern Ireland, and that includes the IRA, not to be aware of what is happening at present.’

  In a leading editorial the Irish News called for the release of Thomas Cochrane and added that the IRA’s ‘inhumane crime had caused enough grief already’.

  When Glenn Cochrane heard the news of the death of Joseph Donegan he phoned the Donegan home and expressed sorrow on behalf of himself and his mother, who was too griefstricken to speak on the phone. He also contacted three major newspapers in Northern Ireland and placed insertions in sympathy for the Donegan family.

  Anne Donegan made another appeal to the IRA and she commented to Anne Purdy of the Newsletter. ‘We do not want Mrs Cochrane to go through what my mother is going through now. I plead with them to let him go to his family. Mrs Cochrane is still hoping and waiting. Our time of waiting is over. My Daddy was a good man who did not belong to any organization. I believe both sides of our community are wrong. We have allowed this situation to go on for too long. The blame is on both sides. How could they do it to my Daddy?’

  When police arrived at the Donegan home to inform the family officially of the death, there was a further poignant moment for Mrs Donegan and her children. The policemen produced a wrist watch, which the family had bought Joseph Donegan for his birthday in 1981, and a bracelet. These were used for identification purposes. Given that Joseph Donegan’s face was unrecognizable, this was a compassionate decision. A family friend, Edward O’Kane, courageously offered to identify the body formally.

  Because Donegan’s body had been found at the rear of Murphy’s former home and blood inside had proved to be that of the dead man, one would assume that the police now had Murphy directly connected with the crime. That, however, was not the case. Though Murphy was not actually living in the house at the time, any fingerprints of his found there could be easily explained. Detective Inspector John Fitzsimmons ordered Murphy to be taken for interview and fingerprinting at Castlereagh Holding Centre. While being fingerprinted the following conversation took place:

  Murphy: What do you think of my new car, Fitzy?

  Fitzsimmons: I haven’t thought about it.

  Murphy: C’mon, what do you think I paid for it?

  Fitzsimmons: I don’t know.

  Murphy: (Laughs) C’mon Fitzy, what do you think?

  Fitzsimmons: You certainly didn’t pay for it. You were inside, so where would you have got the money?

  Murphy laughed again and Fitzsimmons says that this was just another example of Murphy getting kicks by playing games with the police. Fitzsimmons put it to Murphy that he had been involved in the Donegan killing but Murphy just laughed and told him to prove it. The police couldn’t, and Murphy was released.

  The murder of Donegan was, in the words of a leading member of the UVF, ‘the final nail in Murphy’s coffin’. Another UVF man put it this way at the time: ‘If Murphy had simply shot the guy, it would have been another killing but to batter him to death, our own people don’t like that. We ended up carrying the can for the cut-throat jobs and the publicity did not help our image. Now Murphy is at it again and he’ll have to be stopped.’

  The IRA were no less callous than Murphy, and the Cochrane family was obliged to wait for almost a week before Tommy Cochrane’s body was dumped on the border. He had been beaten and shot. His injuries were not as extensive as those of Donegan but the two crimes were equally dastardly and cruel.

  Noel Large was finally brought to justice following a series of eighteen interrogation sessions conducted by Detective Sergeant Wilbert McClenaghan of Mountpottinger Station in East Belfast, assisted by Detective Constable Stirling and guided by Detective Chief Superintendent Hylands. In the opening interrogation session Large expressed the fear that if he made a statement he was likely to receive a stipulated sentence, and this he wished to avoid. He referred to someone he would only name as ‘Doc’ who would poison him in prison if he named anyone. Detective Sergeant McClenaghan’s interview notes show that Large admitted to a series of robberies and then talked about the first murder he had committed. In reading these notes I recognized immediately certain traits in Large’s character which Murphy must also have detected:

  ‘I shot Eugene Mulholland dead in 1981.’ The defendant was asked to relate the circumstances surrounding this murder. He asked for a drink of water which Detective Constable Stirling got for him. He drank the water and then said: ‘I shot him with a .357 Magnum.’ The defendant stated that he and another man went to Delhi Street off the Ormeau Road. They were to shoot an IRA man. The defendant was asked which car he used and he replied that it was a red Ford Cortina. The idea was to lie in a garden and wait for the man coming from a pub and when he came down the garden to let him have it. He said the UVF had intelligence that the man was in the IRA and he went out every Friday night
and it was a Friday night that they went out to get him. The defendant said there were too many police about so they drove down the Ormeau Road to see if they could get any other Taigs. Somewhere around the Hatfield Bar they saw a fellow walking along the pavement and they called him over. He walked towards them and then ran off. The defendant did not feel that he could hit him so he did not fire and they drove on towards the Markets. They saw a man walking up the Ormeau Road on the left and the defendant got out of the car in a side street and walked up behind the man and shot him in the back. Detective Constable Stirling asked the defendant how he was attracted to this man’s attention and the defendant stated: ‘He took off into the air like a fucking angel.’ The defendant laughed. He was asked what happened then and he said that the man landed on the pavement on his stomach with his head turned to one side and that he (the defendant) walked over and stood at the man’s head and looked into his face and he bent to do this. He then went on to say that he looked straight at the man and took a deep breath and then he (the defendant) let him have it on the side of the head and there was a dark red hole where the bullet went in. He went on to say that to make sure he was dead he put another bullet in the top of his head. The defendant was asked how he could have looked the victim in the eyes when he was standing vertically above him. The defendant got up from his chair and walked away from the table, clasped his two hands in front of him with his arms outstretched as if he was holding a gun. He then flexed his knees, arched his back, bringing his hands to within a foot of the floor and stated that the man’s head was just below the gun. The defendant then pretended to fire the gun and he demonstrated the recoil of the gun as he fired it. He then sat down and said: ‘That’s it.’