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.