Cool and calculating, he preyed on victim

Dan Buckley looks at the events leading up to the killing of Melissa Mahon.

SLIGHT and frail and looking younger than her 14 years, Melissa Mahon was a troubled girl. One of a family of 10 children of Freddie and Mary Mahon, she had disappeared numerous times from her home at Rathbraughan Park in Sligo during the summer of 2006.

The Mahons had returned home from London in 2005 to bring up their large family in what they felt would be the safer environment of the West of Ireland. But Melissa, having spent most of her young life in a big city, found it hard to settle and her relationship with her family became fraught.