The Irish Scissor Sisters

by Mick McCaffrey

  In the subsequent investigation it emerged that John didn’t notice any blood on the floor or on the women. Neither did he remember a vile smell, even thought it would have been the type of stink you would expect when a body has just been cut up. Their father shook his head and whispered to the women, ‘This is too serious for me to be involved in. I can’t help. You’re own your own.’

  As soon as he got out onto the street John got physically sick on the pavement. He then jumped in his van and sped away from Ballybough, as fast as he could. On the way home he later claimed he contemplated contacting the police but decided not to. He was in a state of shock.

  The fifty-three-year-old couldn’t sleep a wink that night and got up soon after 5 a.m. on 21 March. It was Charlotte’s twenty-second birthday and her father was thinking about that as he drank a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

  John loved his family but he was not used to breaking the law. He now found himself in an impossible situation. Either he helped his two girls to sort out the monumental mess they were in, or they would be arrested and spend the next twenty years behind bars. He’d long since stopped caring about the woman who was still legally his wife, but he felt it was his duty to help his own flesh and blood.

  Finally reaching a decision, John Mulhall got back into his van and drove to Ballybough again. He picked up three black bags containing clothes, duvets, towels and other items that had been used, or got sprayed with blood, during the murder. He put the bags in the back of his van and drove home to Tallaght.

  As soon as he re-entered the flat in Richmond Cottages, in the eyes of the law, John Mulhall became an accessory to murder. As he did not contact the gardaí and tell them that a man had been killed in the flat, he became part of the conspiracy to cover-up Farah’s death. He was now in serious trouble. The father-of-six was facing the possibility of ten years or more in jail, if the police came knocking at his door. He was all too aware of this as he went through the early morning traffic, but he’d made his choice.

  In the weeks after his daughters killed Farah, John spent his days working and attempting to put his life back together. He was also trying to convince Linda and Charlotte to come clean. Then one incident, a few weeks later, highlighted the mess they were all in. During May 2005 a work colleague of John Mulhall’s, Florian Williams, was having problems with his mobile phone. He was looking for a new one and mentioned it in passing to Mulhall. John told him that he’d see if he could get his hands on one for him. A few weeks later, he came back with a silver Sagem phone and sold it to Florian for €50. The phone was in fact Farah Swaleh Noor’s and Charlotte had given it to her father. John Mulhall had just sold his work pal a mobile phone that had belonged to the murder victim.

  Williams innocently used Farah Noor’s SIM card a total of eight times from 3 June 2005. In late June, Florian was out working in the house of family friend Marc Millea in Clondalkin when Marc said in passing that his phone was out of action. Florian said he had an old phone he could give him and brought it over the following Sunday. Mark Millea put his own SIM card into the Sagem V-55 and used the phone up until August, when he was contacted by gardaí.

  Both Williams and Millea used the phone and SIM card in good faith and didn’t for a minute know where it had come from. When detectives subsequently interviewed John Mulhall, enquiring as to how he had happened upon the mobile of a murder victim, he pleaded ignorance. He said he must have got it from Charlotte or Linda. He claimed he didn’t know that Farah had owned it, but detectives very much doubt this and believe that he was lying. It is likely that Charlotte gave him the phone but whether or not John knew Farah was the previous owner is open to speculation.

  John Mulhall had stored the items he removed from the murder scene in the shed in his back garden. He was waiting for the chance to dispose of them. An opportunity finally arose in mid-July.

  On Wednesday 13 July Vincent Mahon was sitting in the back garden of his house at Mill Lane, in Leixlip, Co. Kildare. He was enjoying the evening sun, resting on a bench he often sat on, overlooking the River Liffey. This time, however, he noticed something unusual out of the corner of his eye. It was about 7.30 p.m. and a big white duvet was floating on top of the water. Mahon got up to take a closer look and immediately noticed a man in his neighbour’s garden, two doors up in Castle Park. The man looked like he was aged around fifty and was about 5 ft 8" to 5 ft 10" in height, of stocky build, with a tight haircut. He was tanned and wore jeans and a T-shirt. Vincent knew that his neighbour, Harry Byrne, was on holidays so he kept a close eye on the man. The stranger continued to throw black bags into the Liffey from Harry’s back garden. Whatever the mystery man was throwing in seemed to be quite light, as the bags floated the 180 feet between the two houses in a matter of seconds.

  Vincent sat and observed the man and saw that he threw about seven or eight bags into the river. He didn’t even bother throwing the last one in but just emptied its contents into the water. This bag contained cans and bottles and, by the sound of them hitting off each other, there were a good few in the bag. Vincent didn’t say anything but he went out the front of his house and headed towards Harry’s. He saw the man walk up the garden, away from the river and noticed a white or cream van parked outside Harry Byrne’s. Vincent Mahon had never seen either the van or the driver there before. It was a small car-van and didn’t look like it had any writing on the side. Vincent decided not to get involved and went back into his house without confronting the litterbug.

  John Mulhall got into his van unchallenged and drove away from Leixlip, having finally got rid of a problem that had been sitting in his shed since March.

  The following Thursday forty-nine-year-old Vincent Mahon finished work again and went outside to relax when he spotted a wheelie bin, with the number thirty-one painted on the side of it. It was standing diagonally up in the water between his house and his neighbour’s, Val Lenane. Val is Harry Byrne’s next-door neighbour and Vincent assumed that the man who had dumped the rubbish from Harry’s back garden was also responsible for the bin. He was annoyed and decided to ring his neighbour to tell him what was going on.

  The following day he rang Niamh Byrne, Harry’s daughter who sometimes babysat for him. He left a message and Harry’s wife, Roisin, called him back, saying she didn’t have a clue who was using her property as a rubbish dump. Roisin said she had organised somebody to come and do some work in the garden on the Tuesday they were away but nobody should have been there on the Wednesday.

  It later emerged that John Mulhall was at the house in Leixlip on 13 July to do some odd jobs around the garden. He was there because Harry Byrne owned City Glass and was John Mulhall’s employer.

  The following Sunday, Vincent’s neighbour, Martin Murray, waded into the Liffey and walked across to where the bin lay. It was lying diagonally in the water, was open slightly and was full of water. He opened it up to check what was inside and a plastic bag and some soggy paper fell out. The paper broke apart and sank and the other bits floated quickly downstream. Martin emptied the water out of the bin and took it to the bank just as Vincent arrived. The two neighbours left it at the Mill Centre, which is a small light-engineering industrial centre beside Vincent’s house on the opposite side of the riverbank. As they were heading back to their houses, Martin Murray bumped into his friend Paul Murray and told him the story of the bin in the river. Paul was interested and decided to take the abandoned bin home because it would come in useful for some work he had planned doing on his nearby house. Little did he realise that the abandoned number thirty-one wheelie bin would be a potentially crucial piece of evidence in a murder investigation and would prompt a massive search of the river when gardaí learned of its existence just a few weeks later.

  John Mulhall was very close to his two brothers and his sister. When he was first brought in for questioning on 3 August 2005 and was released from custody without charge, his brother Andrew went to Store Street Garda Station to collect him. John’s other brother, Eric, travelled
with him, as did his sister, Eileen. The Mulhall brothers also picked up Linda, who had been released from the same station, and forty-one-year-old Andy drove the car in silence to his house in Drimnagh.

  When they got home Andrew and John had a word in private together. He asked John why he had been arrested for murdering his ex-wife’s boyfriend. His brother denied that he had anything to do with the killing. He admitted that on the night of the murder he had got a phone call from one of the girls telling him they were in trouble and asking if he’d go to Kathleen’s flat in Ballybough. He told Andy that he drove over and looked in and when he saw what they had done he’d said. ‘Ye have done it now; ye are on your own,’ and left the flat. John didn’t say directly that he saw the dead body but he knew Noor was dead and that his wife and two daughters were in the house. He thought that his family had committed the terrible murder because Noor had tried to have sex with one of the girls, but he didn’t tell his brother this. Andrew did not question him further because he knew John was upset.

  Three or four weeks after John’s release, Eric Mulhall was out working with him and asked his brother a question that he’d wanted to get off his chest for a while – why had he been arrested? John repeated the same story he’d told Andy and was vague in details. He said he didn’t want to talk about it any more but when the brothers were travelling together in the van and Farah Noor’s murder was mentioned, John broke down crying each time.

  After Charlotte and Linda were charged, he always cried when he saw his daughters on the television or read one of the frequent newspaper articles about them. He was obviously struggling to come to terms with what had taken place. After his release, John Mulhall rarely spoke to his extended family about his arrest. Apart from conversations with Andy he never mentioned the death of Farah Swaleh Noor again. Linda and Charlotte never spoke to their uncles either.

  John might have got away with avoiding the subject when he was with his brothers but after the arrests, the murder of Farah Noor was the talk of the house in Kilclare Gardens and little else was mentioned. Marie had spent the day of the arrests minding Linda’s children and had been told by her uncles that her dad was also in custody. When John arrived back to the house the two of them sat in the front room and Marie asked him why he had been taken away by the guards. He said the police thought he had moved Noor’s body after he was murdered but her father promised that he’d had nothing whatsoever to do with the killing and said he wouldn’t do anything to get himself into trouble. On 30 March John and Marie had been watching the evening news on TV3 when Farah’s body was removed from the canal. The father-of-six had said it was a terrible thing to happen. He hadn’t given Marie any idea that her two sisters were behind the ruthless murder, and Marie, filled with dread, had not said anything about the drunken confession Charlotte had made to her a few days before the body was discovered. After his release from custody in August, Marie believed that her father wasn’t involved and decided to tell him about Charlotte’s confession but he seemed to already know about it.

  After the arrests, life in Kilclare Gardens was very difficult. John struggled to hold things together as his children fought. Marie wouldn’t talk to Linda. She later said her sister ‘thought that the killing of Farah Noor was finished with when she was released. She was sure she got away with it.’

  Meanwhile John was putting Linda under a lot of pressure to talk to the guards about the murder and to clear her conscience. When he was arrested John hadn’t given the gardaí any information, but Sergeant Liam Hickey’s instincts had told him that John Mulhall knew more than he was telling. The experienced officer got the impression that whatever had taken place at Ballybough had sickened John and was eating away at him. He decided to keep in touch with the fitter and regularly called on him after he was released.

  Sergeant Hickey had seized John’s work van for forensic examinations on the day he was arrested. When all tests had been completed three days later on 5 August, he asked Garda Karl Murray to pick the white Berlingo up from the garda compound at Santry Garda Station and drive it to Mountjoy Station. Garda Murray found a licence in the vehicle and after examining it, he realised that it belonged to Mulhall. On closer scrutiny the garda also discovered that the licence was a forgery and after making inquiries, this was confirmed by Dublin City Council. Nothing was said, however, and the vehicle was returned to John Mulhall.

  On 10 August at about 5.30 p.m., Sergeant Liam Hickey and Garda Karl Murray stopped John Mulhall at Sundrive Road, in Crumlin. The father-of-six was driving his work van and Sergeant Hickey asked him for his licence and insurance details. Mulhall said he did not have them with him but said he’d produce them at Tallaght Garda Station. Garda Murray then produced the forged licence and John confirmed that it was his. The two gardaí told him that the licence was a fake, but the fifty-three-year-old insisted it was genuine. He said he had given Kathleen Mulhall his documentation and the money to renew his licence a number of years previously and she had given the licence back to him. Mulhall claimed that the Carriage Office in Harcourt Square had previously examined the licence in order to give him access to Dublin Airport for the purposes of a job he was doing there. He continued to insist his licence was real.

  Sergeant Hickey told him that they were investigating a murder and were very thorough in all their lines of inquiry and there was no doubt that they were correct. Hickey then asked him if he could help the guards with their investigation into Farah Noor’s death and John Mulhall replied: ‘It had nothing to do with me.’

  The Sergeant again asked if he could assist them and Mulhall answered, ‘Not really.’ He agreed to go with the men to Sundrive Road Garda Station and parked his van on the footpath outside. Once inside the station, he repeated that he could be of no assistance and undertook to produce his documentation in Tallaght.

  One week later, on 17 August, Liam Hickey received a call on his mobile from John Mulhall at about 9.30 a.m. He asked to meet the sergeant in a side street off Cork Street, Dublin 8, an hour later. When they met up, John showed Sergeant Hickey his Dublin airport ramp pass, demonstrating that his licence had previously been checked.

  Liam Hickey replied that everything had been checked and that ‘we are not barking up the wrong tree’.

  John Mulhall said, ‘I know that but it had nothing to do with me. Go talk to Linda; tell her I have been arrested and you have found the head in Leixlip or something like that.’

  Coincidentally it was that same day, 17 August, that the Noor murder investigation team had got to hear about the dumping incident at the Leixlip home of John Mulhall’s boss. As a result of the link between Harry Byrne and John, gardaí were certain that the fitter had taken advantage of Byrne being away to dump evidence from Richmond Cottages in the river. It was decided that a full search of the water should be carried out to see if the dumped material was connected to the Noor murder.

  Sergeant Hickey was surprised when John mentioned it and asked if the head was in Leixlip. John replied: ‘No but I heard the gardaí were digging up Harry’s place. Someone told them I dumped stuff up there.’ The garda asked him had he dumped anything and he admitted that he’d ‘dumped a couple of barrels in Harry’s place,’ but he said the head wasn’t there.

  The meeting ended but John Mulhall agreed to meet Sergeant Hickey and Detective Inspector Christy Mangan later on that day, at the same place.

  During the second meeting John Mulhall made a number of sensational revelations – Sgt Hickey’s clever persistence had paid off. Linda’s father told the gardaí that his eldest daughter knew where Farah Noor’s head was buried and that she was the gardaí’s only hope of ever recovering it. He said he’d had many long conversations with his daughter about the brutal killing and that he thought she would tell them where she had stashed the head. He denied any knowledge of what had happened in the flat, however, and said he had played no part in the murder but he agreed that he would help them to get his daughters to confess. This was a massive development in the
case and it was brought about by a combination of good solid police work and John Mulhall doing the right thing.

  Meanwhile Sergeant John Bruton and his crew from the Garda Water Unit arrived in Leixlip and were briefed by DS Colm Fox. They were requested to search the River Liffey from a short distance downstream of Leixlip Bridge. Sgt Bruton, along with Gardaí Eoin Ferriter, Glen Brady and Dave Morris, spent two days searching the river, using a Zodiac MK3 boat for transport. Among the items they recovered were a green plastic rubbish bin, an Aldi bag with a weighing scale, a white plastic bag with a newspaper dated 2 July 2005, a white plastic bag containing rubbish and a second Aldi bag containing beer bottles and crisp packets. A TV aerial, an oven mitt and two plastic bags were also recovered in another Aldi bag. Two old shirts and jumpers were taken from the river, in addition to a red single duvet cover, pillows and another old duvet orange cover.

  The following day, the Divisional Search Unit attached to the Dublin North Central Division went to Harry Byrne’s house in Castle Park to dig up the river embankment at the end of the house. The embankment consisted mainly of earth, on top of two or three layers of sand and rubble, on top of plastic sheeting. At the edge where the river and the embankment meet, there are layers of plastic sheeting, metal strips and sand. Garda Gavin Dunphy recovered a number of items of potential evidence during the dig. A Dublin Corporation envelope, dated 10 June 2005, was recovered along with a Scooby Doo picture frame with a picture of Adolf Hitler inside. A Meteor mobile phone receipt from the Esso garage on Richmond Road was found, along with a brown degradable bag containing hair and maggots. A blue plastic bag was also dug up, containing a pair of gloves, a cigarette lighter from Gala stores in Ballybough, a bathroom towel and a chain. A large knife with a black handle was also found. Detectives were sure that the Liffey find was linked to the murder. They believed that John Mulhall had stored the duvets and other items he’d removed from the Ballybough murder scene in his shed for a few months before deciding what to do with them. When Harry Byrne went on holidays, they were sure that Mulhall had decided that the river at the back of his house would be the perfect place to dispose of the bags of evidence. He wasn’t very clever in getting rid of the evidence, however, and hadn’t realised that he was spotted carrying out the early evening dumping exercise. Allowing the wheelie bin to fall into the water was a particularly amateur error, considering his house number was on the side of it. It wouldn’t take much investigation to lead gardaí straight to him.