A pattern of telling stories at school
From an early age, his parents, John and Sheila Lyons, sensed that he was having learning difficulties, a fact borne out when he went to national school. He made friends and got on well with teachers but struggled academically.
An educational psychologist assessed him as borderline mentally disabled but it was noted that he had good verbal skills which, it is thought, hid his intellectual difficulties and made it more difficult for people dealing with him to recognise his vulnerabilities.
He was transferred to a special school and was remembered as being “polite and affable” but also as loving attention, regardless of whether he got it for doing good or bad.
He had a pattern of story-telling at school, once feigning a heart attack that teachers fully believed. On another occasion, he feigned a spinal injury, only to hop off the trolley when he was rushed to hospital.
Another characteristic was his willingness to accept responsibility for things he hadn’t done, including, among other incidents, an act of vandalism at his school and shoplifting from a store, when CCTV footage showed otherwise.
Dean attended a Youthreach programme after school but never had a steady job. He was taking heroin intravenously by the age of 20 or 21 and began sleeping rough and staying in hostels.
By 1997, at the age of 24, he had one short prison sentence behind him for theft, and was stealing on a regular basis to feed his habit.
Companions recalled him as a “nice, gentle person”, who got on well with women, although he never had a steady girlfriend.
