Family left in anguish as Gussie’s killer remains free

THE family of Gussie Hornibrook may never find out who murdered him.

More than two years after the body of the 74-year-old was found in his home at Templeacre Avenue in Gurranabraher, Cork city, they may never know why the pensioner was viciously beaten and strangled, why he was tied to a chair and why nothing of note was stolen from the impoverished building.

They are unsure how long Gussie – nobody ever called him Christopher – would have been lying there if his now 85-year-old brother did not arrive to find him the next morning.

They are still at a loss over who called gardaí on an unregistered mobile phone two days after the case, spoke to one officer for five minutes with vital evidence, promised to call back before abruptly hanging up the phone, but who has since disappeared.

All they know is Gussie is dead and that the memories of November 5, 2007, still haunt those close to him.

Gussie’s nephew John Hornibrook said: “My dad’s 85 now. He goes to the grave every week. He can’t come to terms with what happened because he doesn’t know how his brother died.

“Did he suffer? Did he fight back? Was he in a lot of pain? Nobody knows because no-one’s been caught,”

In autumn 2007, John’s mother died of a stroke. A year later, his father, Bobby, faced a second personal tragedy when he found his brother’s lifeless body.

Bobby Hornibrook looked after Gussie by regularly stopping by to bring the quiet pensioner food and give him money to go to the shops.

It was the reason he found Gussie that morning.

“My dad and Billy, who’s 79, are the only ones left in the family, but my dad took what happened to Gussie harder than anyone because he’d been looking after him for so long.

“He goes down to the grave in Douglas every week, cleans it up, says hello. My dad was a coal miner in England. He worked hard all his life and doesn’t deserve this heartache. You’d think that when you reach that stage in life something like this wouldn’t happen,” John said.

Most people who knew Gussie thought of him as a quiet man who kept to himself and needed to be looked after. But he wasn’t always this way.

In 1976, after the death of his mother, Gussie had a nervous breakdown and was placed in St Anne’s hospital for just over a month – the claustrophobic atmosphere contributing to his habit in later life of keeping doors unlocked at all times.

The treatment appeared to work, but soon after he left, there were difficulties with Gussie’s medication.

The only way to uncover the reason why was for the Cork man to go back to hospital, which he refused to do.

As a result, Gussie slowly deteriorated into a man who people in the Gurranabraher area all kept a supportive look-out for.

John said: “When Gussie moved into the house in Templeacre, everyone thought it was the safest place for him. The neighbours looked after him; my dad was down every day with food and money.

“He was mugged there in about 1994. They broke his ribs and took some money, and after that he wouldn’t keep any cash at the house. He gave everything to my dad to hold on to and if he needed anything, he’d drop up.

“But even up until what happened that night, we all thought it was the safest place for him. All we want is to know what happened and who is responsible.”

While gardaí have confirmed that the investigation into the death of Gussie Hornibrook is still open, more than two years on, it appears to have hit a brick wall.

In the immediate aftermath of the pensioner’s death, a murder hunt, led by Superintendent Con Cadogan, was launched, with a team of 15 detectives being assigned to the case.

In the months that followed, they sifted through almost 1,600 questionnaires, took close to 420 statements, interviewed more than 140 taxi drivers who were working in the area that night and trawled through 600 hours of CCTV footage.

They released a photograph of Gussie in the hope that it would jolt someone’s memory. They also again drew attention to a rare and expensive Italian tie which had been found in the pensioner’s house and did not belong to him.

A reconstruction of his last movements was aired on RTÉ One’s Crimecall programme. Members of Gussie’s extended family made a heartfelt appeal for help in finding their uncle’s killer. All to no avail.

Two years on, gardaí are still looking for the public to assist the inquiry.

A staff member of Singleton’s Centra store on Gurranabraher road, who asked not to be identified, was one of the last people to see Gussie when he dropped into the shop hours before his death.

She believes the killer is still living in the area.

“There was people questioned but I suppose it’s proof. They wanted to question everyone who came into the shop, checked out the CCTV for a while.

“In my opinion anyway, it would have been someone local because they knew he wasn’t able to fight back, that the doors weren’t locked and that he was an old man living alone.

“They were probably waiting in the house when he came in. I’m only presuming. It’s a disgrace that no one’s ever been found,” she said.

The latter comment, and the anger behind it, is not a rarity.

Mention Gussie’s name in Gurranabraher and nobody needs to be reminded of what happened, or how the perpetrator has yet to be brought to justice for the vicious, needless murder.

It’s been two and a half years since the 74-year-old was savagely set upon, tied up, beaten and murdered in his own home.

The post-mortem noted that he died of a combination of blunt force trauma to the chest and neck and restraint asphyxia.

Despite ongoing, widespread garda inquiries, the only evidence of who may have been his killer is the expensive Italian tie.

“What’s killing my dad is how Gussie died, he just doesn’t know,” explained John.

“He reckons he suffered big time, but he doesn’t know if it was fast, if it was slow, if he was there being attacked all night. We just want to know what happened.”

lAnybody with information should contact Gurranabraher Garda Station at 021 4946200.