Pair jailed for disposal of Mulready Woods' remains

Difficult to envisage a more egregious way to interfere in the investigation of a murder, says judge

Keane Mulready Woods: Teenager was murdered in 2020. File picture.

Two criminals who showed "abhorrent inhumanity and disrespect" by helping dispose of the dismembered remains of murdered teenager Keane Mulready Woods in 2020 have each been sentenced to six years in prison by the Special Criminal Court.

One of the offenders, Stephen Carberry, had his sentence reduced  because as he was on bail when he moved the body parts, his prison terms must run consecutively. Ms Justice Karen O'Connor said she is required to consider the total impact of the combined sentences.

In July 2023, Carberry was jailed for eight years after he was found guilty of being a "trusted cog" in a €1.5m cocaine and ecstasy operation.

Ms Justice O'Connor, presiding at the three-judge court, said on Monday that it would be difficult to envisage a more egregious way to interfere in the investigation of a murder than that committed by Carberry, aged 48, and Glen Bride, aged 32.

At a previous hearing, Detective Sergeant Enda O'Sullivan told John Byrne, prosecuting, that gardaí were satisfied that Mr Mulready Woods, 17, was murdered by Robbie Lawlor, a notorious criminal linked to several violent deaths and who himself was shot dead in Belfast in April 2020.

The court heard that neither Carberry nor Bride had any involvement in or knowledge of the murder when it happened. However, both were involved in the transportation and disposal of Mr Mulready Woods' remains afterwards, intending to impede Lawlor's apprehension or prosecution.

Part of the background to the murder was an ongoing feud between criminal organisations in Drogheda and the 2019 murder of Richie Carberry, who was married to Robbie Lawlor's sister. Richie Carberry's brother, Stephen Carberry, drove a Volvo V40 from Drogheda to Dublin with Mr Mulready Woods' remains in two bags in the boot. He left one of the bags at Moatview Gardens before parking the car in the Donnycarney area of north Dublin.

On January 14, 2020, Carberry brought Bride to Donnycarney and showed him where the car was parked. Shortly after midnight, Carberry and Bride took a taxi to Donnycarney and Bride got into the Volvo and drove to a secluded area at Trinity Terrace, off the Clonliffe Road, where he set the car on fire.

Inhumanity and disrespect

Delivering sentence on Monday, Ms Justice O'Connor said the inhumanity and disrespect were abhorrent, and the grief caused to the victim's family is immeasurable and permanent.

She said: "To lose a child is every parent’s nightmare but what this family has suffered is beyond words." 

She said the child's parents had honoured their son with the dignity they have shown.

In relation to Carberry, she said his offending was at the very top end and she set a headline of 10 years, the maximum penalty for the offence. However, the judge reduced that to seven years and six months after considering his guilty plea.

She further reduced the sentence to six years after taking into account the fact that Carberry was on bail when he committed this offence and she is therefore required to impose a consecutive sentence. The court has heard that Carberry, who has 77 previous convictions, was due for release in 2028 having been sentenced in 2023 for the offence under  section 15a of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

The judge said she is required to impose a period of imprisonment consecutive to the one he is already serving, so she further reduced the term to take into account the principle that requires a judge to consider the total impact of sentencing.

Bride, who has 86 previous convictions, is also currently serving a sentence with a release date in 2027. Ms Justice O'Connor said he has more serious previous offending, including for violent offences, but played a lesser role than Carberry in the disposal of the body parts. She set a headline sentence of nine years for Bride, but having considered his guilty plea and expressions of remorse, she reduced that to six years, beginning from today's date.

Guilty pleas

Bride, formerly of Mount Olive Park, Kilbarrick, Dublin 5, previously pleaded guilty to assisting in the movement and disposal of the murdered teenager's body parts which had been stowed in the boot of a stolen Volvo V40 and left in a residential area in north Dublin.

Carberry, of Sandymount Avenue, Dublin 4, previously pleaded guilty to charge that on a date between January 13 and 15, 2020, both dates inclusive, within the State, knowing or believing another person to be guilty of the murder of Mr Mulready Woods or some other arrestable offence, did without reasonable excuse, an act with intent to impede the apprehension or prosecution of that other person.

Mr Mulready Woods was last seen alive in Drogheda on January 12, 2020. The following day, some of the teenager's body parts were found in a sports bag in the Moatview area of Coolock in Dublin. On January 15, further remains were found in a burning car that Bride had moved to a laneway in Drumcondra. Members of Dublin Fire Brigade discovered the remains in a sports bag in the boot.

The teen's torso was discovered 14 months later, on March 11, 2020, hidden in an overgrown ravine during a search of waste-ground at Rathmullan Park in Drogheda, near where the teenager was murdered.

At a previous hearing, Det Sgt O'Sullivan told Mr Byrne, prosecuting, that when Mr Mulready Woods' mother, Elizabeth Mulready, reported her son missing at Drogheda Garda Station on January 13, 2020, gardaí had just received a tip-off that he had been murdered.

Victim impact statement

In a victim impact statement written by Ms Mulready and read at Carberry and Bride's sentencing hearings, she said nothing could ever prepare a parent for losing a child, but the way her son had been taken and what was done to him after his death had left a level of trauma that she will carry for the rest of her life.

Ms Mulready said instead of being allowed dignity in death, her son’s body was “cut up, scattered, and treated as if he was nothing”.

She added: “As if he was not someone’s son. As if he did not matter. The cruelty and inhumanity of disposing of my child’s body in pieces is something no parent should ever have to face.” 

She said knowing that parts of her son were left in different places around the country was a “constant and unbearable torment”.

She said not a day goes by that she isn’t “haunted” by images and thoughts of what was done to her son.

“I relive it when I wake up, and it follows me when I try to sleep,” she said. “This is not grief that fades with time. It is trauma that lives inside me.” 

She said her family has been “destroyed” by what happened and his siblings lost their brother “in the most brutal way imaginable”.

What hurts even more was that after her son was killed, “choices were made”, to further “disrespect him and to further harm us”, Ms Mulready added.

She said Keane deserved “dignity” and “respect” and deserved to be treated like “a human being, not as something to be discarded”.

“I speak today for my son because he no longer has a voice,” Ms Mulready said, asking the court to consider the “lifelong impact” this has had on her and her family and the “unimaginable cruelty” of what was done when deciding on a sentence.

In his victim impact statement, which was also read to the court, Keane's father, Barry Woods, questioned why “fully grown men with families of their own” would “take a 17-year-old boy” and dump his body parts as they did.

“We had to have his funeral with only half his body parts in his coffin. Horrible,” he said.

Mr Woods said he was still “haunted” by this “savage murder” and still has nightmares about what happened.