Sickening plan of our first serial killers

EVEN by today’s standards when society seems more accustomed to the savage nature of some murders, the killing of two young Irish women back in 1976 by the country’s first known serial killers was particularly gruesome.

The nation was even more sickened when details of the murders of Elizabeth Plunkett from Dublin and Mary Duffy from Mayo emerged at the trial of Englishmen, John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans, two years later.

What particularly shocked the public was the revelation that the two killings were the result of a depraved plan agreed between the two men to abduct, rape and murder one woman every week during their stay in the Republic.

Shaw and Evans hatched their sickening plan in August 1976.

Their first victim was 23-year-old office clerk Elizabeth Plunkett, whom they met at the popular seaside resort in Co Wicklow.

The pair took her in their car to a nearby wood where they tied her up and repeatedly raped her. Shaw then strangled her with his shirt. The following night they dumped her body at sea.

On September 22, they abducted Mary Duffy, 25, a part-time cook from Belcarra, Co Mayo, while she was waiting for a lift.

The young woman was raped repeatedly in the back of their car before she was taken to an abandoned railway station and held captive to be raped and tortured for a further two days before being murdered. Mary’s body was dumped in Lough Inagh.

In February 1978, Shaw, now 59, was sentenced to life imprisonment for Elizabeth’s murder as well as 14 years for rape and a further two years for false imprisonment.

Ten months later, Evans, 61, was also given a life sentence for the same crime as well as being jailed for 20 years for the rape of both women.