Teenager shot dead yards from home

A 19-year-old man shot dead and dumped on a canal bank was murdered just yards from his family home, it emerged tonight.

Darren Guerrine was found at the Grand Canal in west Dublin by a man on his way to work after being hit at point blank range with a shotgun blast.

His blood-soaked body was discovered on a grassy stretch of the canal towpath in the Bluebell area shortly before 8am.

It is the latest in a series of gangland blood letting which has seen an Irish drugs baron gunned down in Spain and Dublin criminal Martin ’The Viper’ Foley suffer serious injuries in a failed murder bid.

Superintendent Thady Muldoon, who is heading the investigation, appealed for witnesses.

“It is a very, very serious incident and a shocking incident but at this stage as to motives we cannot speculate,” he said.

“At this stage I can only appeal for anyone who has any information in relation to anything of a suspicious nature which may have happened in that vicinity to contact gardaí.”

Supt Muldoon said members of the public had begun to come forward but gardaí had not received a description of the gunman and refused to be drawn on a motive for the killing.

Guerrine was known to gardaí in the Bluebell area and while he had been linked with low level crime there he had been no convictions for serious offences.

The towpath where he was found can only be accessed on foot across a narrow lock-gate on the canal and is a popular short-cut with local people. Guerrine’s family home on nearby La Touche Road is just yards from where he was found dead.

Gardaí are investigating whether Guerrine was ambushed by his killer after being lured to the canal.

A group of his friends and relatives arrived at the scene as word spread around the Bluebell area of the murder and several distraught young people collapsed in tears.

Gardaí spent several hours conducting forensic tests at the canal and Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis was also called to the scene to carry out preliminary examinations.

The man’s body was removed for a full post mortem examination at around midday.

Gardaí believe Guerrine was shot some time between 7pm last night and 7am today and that the body was not discovered for several hours.

The Garda Sub Aqua unit was called in to search the canal for a gun used in the murder while an area of a nearby football pitch was also cordoned off to allow for intensive searches.

It is understood some ammunition was recovered from the canal bank.

It is the third gun killing in the country this year after dissident republican Andrew Burns, 27, was murdered in Co Donegal last week and a father-of-three was shot dead in Sligo on January 5.

Official garda figures show 84 people died violently in Ireland last year.