Getting away with murder no more

Colin Whelan thought he could evade capture and prison - but he was wrong, write John Breslin and Siobhan Gaffney.

DAVID GOUGH, sitting just yards from Colin Whelan, directly addressed his sister’s killer and vowed never to forgive him.

“You caused devastation to our family when you brutally strangled Mary and you took a piece of us too,” said David, speaking on behalf of a family living a “life sentence” since the death of the only girl in the family of five, who lost their father in 1989.

David, a twin, branded Whelan a coward for fleeing the country before he was due to stand trial for murder.

“You tried to rob us of justice, you thought you were above the law but you are not. Justice has finally been done here today.

“Mary’s only crime was loving you too much. No time in prison will ever be enough. The one thing you can’t take away is the wonderful cherished memories of Mary and the wonderful part she played in our lives. May she now rest in peace.”

Mary Gough was just 19 when she met Colin Whelan in 1993.

The only daughter of Marie, a widowed mother-of-five, she was working in a public house close to the family home in Stamullen, Co Meath.

Like all relationships, there were ups and downs and the couple split in 1995, but only for a few months.

In 1997, Whelan purchased a house in Clonard Street in Balbriggan and the following year they became engaged, marrying on September 9, 2000.

As Whelan, who was then 29, publicly pledged his lifelong love for his wife, he was also plotting to kill her, accessing websites with information on how to strangle someone without the crime being discovered.

The motive was mainly money - an insurance policy worth over €500,000 - but at the end of 2000 he also began an online affair with a woman, one that became intense in the weeks leading up to March 1.

They had planned to meet up on March 2, 2001, the day after Whelan strangled Mary with the cord of her own dressing gown.

Whelan never did meet the woman. Detectives interviewed her but are protecting her identity and will only say she is from Europe.

It is believed, however, she is Irish and might have given evidence had Whelan not pleaded guilty to murder.

The couple signed the £400,000 (€500,000) insurance policy in June, despite being advised against it by a financial expert. In the event of either person’s death in the following 10 years, the surviving partner would collect on the policy, it read.

Within weeks, Whelan, a 33-year-old IT specialist, was consulting websites to find out how he could strangle his wife-to-be and get away with murder.

He murdered a person who her brother David described as, “beautiful, funny, intelligent, straight-talking, easygoing”.

But he didn’t get away with it and yesterday was sentenced to mandatory life in prison.

Whelan, in accessing the web for information on death by strangulation, on blocking the windpipe, on how long it takes to die from asphyxiation, on loss of consciousness, wanted to find out how he could cover up the crime and make it look like an accident.

This involves, at least in part, keeping the body warm by wrapping it in towels to prevent the bruise and ligature marks showing.

Some time late on February 28, 2001, Whelan strangled his wife with the cord of her dressing gown in the master bedroom of the terraced house in Clonard Street.

He then carried the body to the bottom of the stairs and called the emergency services at 12.16am on March 1.

As an ambulance raced to the scene, Whelan remained on the phone and told the operator his wife had fallen down the stairs. He was advised how to carry out emergency CPR.

But his murderous scheme soon unravelled. The doctor at Beaumont Hospital noticed marks on her neck not consistent with a fall and State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy confirmed beyond doubt that Mary was strangled.

DESPITE his IT experience and attempts to cover his tracks on the web, garda computer experts discovered Whelan had gathered information connected to strangulation on eight occasions, from July 4, 2000 to the day Mary was murdered.

Whelan, in a statement read out by his counsel, expressed his remorse, apologised for the pain he had inflicted and accepted full responsibility for the murder of a person he described as “totally loving, caring and trustworthy”.

Mr Justice Paul Carney, barely controlling his anger at Whelan’s callousness and for prolonging the family’s suffering by faking his own death and then blocking an early trial, gave him no credit.

His sentence would start from the day he pleaded guilty and a transcript of yesterday’s hearing should remain on file, required reading for any parole board contemplating releasing this most calculated killer.