Man gets life for murder of 65-year-old mother

A 26-year-old man was jailed for life after a jury found him guilty of the murder of a 65-year-old who was “the best mum in the whole world”, at the Central Criminal Court today.

Conor Grogan (aged 26), of Avonbeg Park, Tallaght, Dublin, and Timothy Rattigan (aged 26), of St Dominick’s Terrace, Tallaght, Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mrs Joan Casey (aged 65) at Avonbeg Park on April 3, 2004.

The jury of six men and six women found Rattigan guilty of murder with a majority verdict of 10 to two, after deliberating for a total of five hours and 27 minutes.

Mr Justice Paul Carney had directed the jury earlier this week to find Rattigan’s co-accused, Grogan, not guilty due to insufficient evidence against him.

“I sentence the accused to prison for life,” Mr Justice Carney said. The mandatory life sentence is effective immediately.

Mrs Casey’s family members broke down crying as the guilty verdict was delivered.

The victim’s daughter, Ms Martina Casey, told the court about the affect her mother’s death has had on the family. Martina is one of the family’s five children, one of whom was killed tragically a few years ago.

“She was the most wonderful person on earth. The loss is just something you cannot put into words,” she said quietly.

Martina said she “wasn’t so sure” her testimony would make any difference. “At the end of the day, my mammy is still gone. I miss my mammy terribly,” she whimpered.

“Anything on this earth cannot affect us the way this has. We lost the most important person in our lives,” Martina said.

Martina talked to her mother every day. “She was my confidant, if I had a bad day at work or if I got my haircut and didn’t like the way it turned out, I called my mum.”

“She was the kindest, most loving, gentle, caring, amazing lady. She was a gift from God. No matter how many adjectives I use it won’t make a difference,” Ms Casey said.

The Casey family felt wronged because they never got to say goodbye to their mother.

“We never got a chance to say goodbye, we were deprived of her,” she said.

The way her mother was murdered was particularly distressing for the family, Martina said.

Mrs Casey was shot dead through her bedroom door at 6am after two men with a shotgun smashed in through the front door.

During the 12-day trial, the court heard how Mrs Casey had moved to sleep in that room “because she thought she would be safer” there, after a window was smashed in her front bedroom in November 2003.

“The circumstances in which mummy died, it’s just unreal,” Martina said.

“You’d think it would happen in a movie, not here. My mum was murdered. It’s not something I like to say,” she added.

She told the court she now locks herself in at night and puts the alarms on. “Mum locked herself in too, but they still managed to smash our doors.”

Martina said the whole family “has suffered terribly” since the murder. “There is absolutely no way we will be the people we once were,” she said.

“I don’t have her beautiful smile anymore, I guess I have to reach into my memories now,” Martina said.

Her sister, Ms Theresa Casey, described their mother as “a very peaceful person, she prayed for peace”.

“She brought us up to be honest and do our best, to love God and try to be good,” she told the court.

Theresa has not told her own children how their grandmother died.

“I haven’t been able to tell them what happened because I don’t understand it myself,” she said.

“I don’t understand how people do something like this,”

“We are all finding it really hard to carry on but we are trying,” she said.

The court also heard from Detective Inspector Seamus Kane, who was in charge of the murder investigation.

He said Rattigan has two previous convictions.

“One for trespassing and another for a minor matter,” Det Insp Kane said.

Rattigan’s own father was “a victim of a killing”, the court heard. The accused lives with his sisters, is single and has no occupation at the moment.

During the trial, the court heard how Rattigan and Grogan had been together drinking from the night before the killing at Ahern’s pub in Tallaght and had ended up at Rattigan’s sister’s flat in the early hours of April 3rd.

Mrs Casey’s neighbor, Mr Colm O’Brien, had woken up around 6am to shouting, smashing noises and two loud bangs. He saw two men, one of whom had a shotgun, at the dead woman’s gate, walking away slowly.

The shotgun was found disassembled in three pieces in a blue bag in the bushes close to Rattigan's sister's flat. The bag also contained live and spent cartridges and a blank firing pistol.

Ms Annette Forde of the Forensic Science Laboratory told the court the shotgun had fresh scratches on it, which contained powder from the same two types of glass that were smashed in on Mrs Casey's front door.

The one fingerprint found on the double-barrelled shotgun matched Rattigan’s left ring-finger print.

The fingerprint was on a part of the barrel, which would only have been exposed if it had been taken apart or assembled.

“It conclusively represents a link between the gun and the accused, Timothy Rattigan,” Mr Edward Comyn SC, prosecuting, said.

“You may conclude that after the killing of Mrs Casey, that gun was wiped down,” he said.

In his opening statement to the jury, Mr Comyn had said that Mrs Casey’s killing was possibly a case of mistaken identity. The target “could have perhaps been her son, Gerard”, he said.

Mr Gerard Casey, who had lived on and off at his mother’s home, was married to one of Rattigan’s sisters and the couple have four children together.

Mr Anthony Sammon SC, for Rattigan, said the case against his client was “entirely circumstantial”.

Mr Justice Carney refused Mr Sammon leave to appeal the case.

Mr Justice Carney told the court that two witnesses who had been deemed hostile, Mr Dylan Johson and Mr Stephen Johnson, would not be facing contempt of court charges before him.

“I’m satisfied that they were each lying through their teeth. But I have had their transcripts analysed and nothing in smoking gun form comes across on paper,” he said.

Mr Justice Carney said that while he would not pursue the matter further, “that doesn’t stop prosecution” from doing so.