The Grangegorman Murders: Dean Lyons, Mark Nash and the Story behind the Grangegorman Murders

Number 1 Orchard View is a two-storey four-bedroom end-of-terrace house on Upper Grangegorman, Dublin, at the junction with Marne Villas and Rathdown Road, almost directly opposite the main entrance to St Brendan’s Psychiatric Hospital. The terrace itself comprises five similar houses, all of which were owned in 1997 by the Eastern Health Board as part of its community housing scheme. At that time the board owned and operated 106 houses under the scheme, 36 of which were in the vicinity of Orchard View. A total of 930 people lived in the houses.

The residents were for the most part former long-term psychiatric patients, a large number of whom had at one time or other been in-patients in St Brendan’s. The aim of the community housing scheme was that through living in the community, in conditions as near to normal as possible, former long-term patients could be assisted towards normalisation and eventual full reintegration in society. Ultimately, except in extreme cases, it was hoped that the scheme would replace institutional care.

Numbers 1 and 2 Orchard View catered for residents who lived independently, while numbers 3 to 5, which were connected internally, had a nurse on duty in them at all times to provide professional support for the twelve residents, none of whom were considered to be as stable as the seven former patients who lived in numbers 1 and 2.

To the front of number 1 was a three-foot wall, while the side and rear gardens were enclosed behind a six-foot wall, with a wicket gate allowing access between the front and rear gardens. Internally, the downstairs comprised two separate reception rooms together with a fully fitted kitchen in the return. A staircase led from the front hallway to a short landing, with three further steps leading to a bedroom and a communal bathroom, both of them in the return. A sharp left turn off the same short corridor led to a further three bedrooms, two with windows facing the front and a third with its window looking out onto the side and rear of the house.

The hospital itself is laid out on an enclosed 75-acre site, with controlled access through the main entrance and further access through its emergency admissions ward. The site comprises a large number of separate granite-fronted buildings. Grangegorman Road Lower bisects the site, with the two sections connected by a tunnel running under the road.

Over the years the number of in-patients in St Brendan’s has fallen off considerably, as a result of the community housing scheme and other ventures, and as the wards emptied they were closed down. By 1997 the section of the hospital on the Orchard View side of the road had been fully emptied and had fallen into disrepair.

On the night of Thursday 6 March 1997 only three of the four bedrooms at number 1 Orchard View were occupied. The occupant of the fourth bedroom, a box room to the front of the house, had been asked to leave by the hospital authorities on 16 January 1997, following a number of complaints by the other residents. The only male in the house, he had been in the habit of allowing callers, including women, to visit and stay late in his room. When he moved out he left most of his personal belongings in the room.

Mary Callinan slept in the large bedroom to the front of the house. She was sixty-one years old, having celebrated her birthday three days earlier. A single woman, she had been an in-patient in St Brendan’s since 1966, a victim of paranoid schizophrenia. In 1986 she had transferred from the hospital to a local high-support hostel and from there had graduated to a low-support hostel and eventually to independent living. She had lived at Orchard View since 1988. She was described by the hospital staff as ‘high-functioning’.

Mary was an only child, both of whose parents had died in the early 1960s, which had precipitated her breakdown. She had left school at sixteen and until being committed to the hospital had worked in a number of factories. By all accounts both her parents had been loving and caring and her upbringing had been, for the most part, uneventful. At the time of her death she was working as a general operative in a sheltered workshop in the Finglas area. She had a good relationship with her colleagues and supervisors.

Sylvia Sheils was sixty and had first been admitted to St Brendan’s for a short period in 1980. Also a single woman, she was readmitted in 1983 with a diagnosis of chronic schizophrenia and severe borderline personality disorder and also epilepsy. In the mid-1980s she had been moved out of the hospital into sheltered accommodation in nearby Stanhope Terrace and in 1994 moved to Orchard View.

In 1987 Sylvia had been made redundant by the civil service. With a modest pension, she lived frugally, though she was considered by her peers to be ‘well off’ because she had both a pension and a bank account! Described by them as a bubbly and friendly person, she was well liked. She was also an avid reader. She was one of three children from a close-knit and supportive family, all of whom stayed in touch with one another.

Sylvia’s bedroom adjoined that of Mary, and she worked in the same sheltered workshop. She was well known in the locality and regularly called in to the nearby Clarke’s bakery to buy confectionery as a treat for the other residents. The workers in the bakery described her as being very pleasant as well as thoughtful.

Ann Mernagh, the third resident, had moved into the house only in late 1996. She was considerably younger than the other two women, being forty-six at the time. However, they all mixed well together and were close friends. Ann had first come to the attention of the psychiatric services as early as 1973, when she was twenty-two, following an unsuccessful attempt to take her own life. A severe borderline personality disorder was diagnosed, and she also suffered from epilepsy. She had a long history of unstable moods and a tendency to self-harm. She claimed to have been sexually abused as a child, some of her episodes of self-harm resulting in mutilation of her genital area. She had been transferred to St Brendan’s in 1986, having been found to be generally unmanageable. By 1990, however, she had graduated to sheltered accommodation and in September 1996 moved into number 1 Orchard View. (The date of her moving into the house will be shown later to have played a significant role in this investigation.) She worked in a sheltered workshop in the hospital grounds.

Ann’s bedroom was at the end of the short corridor opening off the top of the stairs in the return portion of the building. Next to her bedroom was the bathroom and toilet. A sharp left turn at the top of the stairs led to the narrow hallway running towards the front of the house, off the right-hand side of which Mary’s and Sylvia’s rooms both opened, with the vacant bedroom facing directly onto the corridor.

Evidence of the length of time all the occupants had spent in sheltered accommodation was obvious throughout the house, including the regimented way in which items were neatly arranged and the manner in which the breakfast table was set in advance for the following morning. The house was spotless, entirely free of clutter and all surfaces gleaming. Each resident had her own delph and cutlery and her agreed space in the fridge and cupboards.

The downstairs front room had a television set and four armchairs arranged around a low coffee table. The middle room contained the dining-room table, all set for breakfast, and an ironing-board. These were the only items of furniture in the two rooms. The spotless kitchen was at the rear of the house; the only things out of place were those that had been disturbed by the intruder.

The kitchen window looked out onto the enclosed yard. It was a sash window with four separate panes of glass, each approximately two feet by one foot. Both the top and bottom sash could be opened only to a depth of about six inches; after an earlier break-in in December 1996 hospital maintenance workers had fastened pieces of wood to the frame to prevent it being opened any further. No-one was ever charged with that burglary, and nothing of any value was taken. It could never be established whether that break-in had any connection with the murders or was a random crime.

The back yard is enclosed by a six-foot wall. The wicket gate in the wall had no lock, but a discarded cooker kept it permanently closed. The Gardaí would subsequently establish, however, that any pressure on the door could force the cooker back enough to allow access to the yard.

Ann Mernagh was to be the sole survivor of the events that occurred in the house on the night of 6/7 March 1997. She married in 1999, to another former patient, and in 2001 they moved together into a Dublin City Council flat in Drumalee Grove off the North Circular Road. But tragedy was to follow her. In early 2005 Ann left home early in the morning to take her dog for a walk. On her return she found her flat ablaze and her husband, James, who at this time was partially bedridden, dead from injuries he received. It appears that he managed to crawl as far as the front door but had been unable to reach up to open the lock. It was later established that the fire had broken out in his bed when he had dozed off while smoking. Ann, whose own physical health had also deteriorated over the years, died the following year.

At 8 p.m. on the evening of Thursday 6 March 1997 Ann Mernagh left the house at 1 Orchard View to attend a bingo session in the parochial hall in nearby Prussia Street. As she was leaving she said goodbye to Sylvia Sheils and Mary Callinan, who were in the front room watching television. They had both declined her offer to bring them back chips from the chip shop, saying they intended retiring early, as they were both due at work the following morning.

On her way to the parochial hall Ann met a resident from one of the other houses. She asked him if he would call to her house and tell Mary or Sylvia to make sure that Ann had unplugged the iron she had been using. He called briefly and spoke to Sylvia, who made sure all was in order while he was still there.

Ann had won about £10 at the session and was in great form when leaving. The parochial hall is almost directly opposite a house set in flats where, it was discovered many months later, Mark Nash, who would later be arrested for a double murder in Co. Roscommon, was then living with his partner and their young child. Ann called in to the chip shop and bought two bags of chips, one for herself and one for the nurse on night duty in number 5. This was a regular habit of Ann’s.

As she walked along Kirwan Street towards Grangegorman she walked past the entrance of a laneway, a cul de sac at the rear of Stanhope Street Convent School. In 1986 a young local woman, coming home from a disco in the Rumours night-club attached to the Gresham Hotel, had shared a taxi with a stranger as far as the corner of Kirwan Street and Manor Street. She had alighted and begun to walk towards home. Unknown to her, the stranger had also got out of the taxi and followed her into Kirwan Street, where he had dragged her down the laneway, sexually assaulted her, and then strangled her. He had then fled the scene. The following day, during technical examination of the scene, a pair of reading glasses was found. I was one of a party of gardaí who would spend several weeks trawling through the records of various opticians’ offices throughout the city and adjoining counties. Eventually the owner of the glasses was found, and he admitted to the murder of the unfortunate young woman.

I have to admit that I was somewhat sceptical about that line of inquiry at the time, and I was not alone in this. However, Chief Superintendent John Courtney, the officer in charge of the then murder squad, was insistent on the job being done properly, having some years earlier solved the murder of an off-duty garda in much the same way.

Ann called into number 5 Orchard View and spoke briefly to the nurse after giving her the bag of chips. She then went into her own house, where she found that her two friends were in bed. She went into Sylvia’s room and told her about her good luck at the bingo. Sylvia congratulated her, and Ann then went to bed. She did not disturb Mary. The time was 11:30 p.m.

Ann had always encountered great difficulty in getting to sleep. However, following advice from the various doctors she attended, she always had a personal cassette-player with her in bed, which she listened to through earphones. She also slept with her head covered by a blanket, a legacy, it is believed, of her being sexually abused in her youth. In a strange twist, it would possibly be these habits that, on this particular night, would save her life.

At 6 a.m. Ann got up and, putting on her dressing-gown against the early-morning chill, went downstairs to make breakfast for herself and her friends, a task she carried out every morning. As she walked downstairs she saw that her handbag, which she had left on the coffee table in the front room before going to bed, was lying on the ground at the foot of the stairs, its contents strewn on the floor. She gingerly stepped over the bag and walked towards the kitchen. As she passed the door of the dining-room she noticed that the light was on in the room. She would never have gone to bed the previous night or, with her training, any other night and left a light on. Now she saw what appeared to be smears of blood on the light-switch. Becoming increasingly apprehensive, she walked into the kitchen.

The first thing she saw on turning on the kitchen light was the curtain blowing in and out. One of the kitchen drawers had been removed from the unit and left lying on the floor. Beside it she saw what appeared to be shards of glass. Believing that the house had been burgled again, she ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs, calling out Sylvia’s name at the top of her voice. Not receiving any answer, she burst in the bedroom door, turning on the light as she did so. She would later tell the liaison gardaí who were appointed to look after her, Chris Kelly and Ann Markey, that the sight that greeted her in Sylvia’s room would stay in her mind for ever.

Sylvia lay across her bed, with her feet planted firmly apart on the floor, facing the door. Her nightdress was pushed up as far as her chest, which was exposed. Ann could clearly see that there was blood on her neck and chest and also on the sheets. She approached her friend and shook her gently, all the time calling out her name in a low voice. As she placed her hand on Sylvia she felt cold. She later said, ‘I knew then that she was dead.’

Panicking, and fearing that the person who had done this to her friend might still be in the house, watching her and waiting to attack her, Ann rushed downstairs without going in to check on Mary. She threw open the front door—noticing as she did so that the safety chain she had engaged before going to bed was off—and ran out into the middle of the road. She would later be asked how long she had spent outside on the road but would be unable to estimate it. She said that the sight of Sylvia had made her frightened and disoriented. A lorry driver delivering a load to Nolan’s fish factory nearby would later tell the Gardaí that he had observed a woman in a dressing-gown pacing up and down outside number 1, seeming to be in an agitated state. He had not taken any action, believing that she was a patient in the hospital.

Slowly regaining some control, Ann began to realise that she had not checked on Mary. Fearing also that Sylvia’s attacker might still be in the house, she ran to number 5, screaming for the nurse on duty to help her. When Nurse Mona Long (not her real name) answered the door she was faced with a hysterical Ann Mernagh, whom she brought inside and eventually managed to calm down sufficiently to make some sense of what she was trying to say.

By this time the noise and shouting had woken all the other residents in this and the adjoining houses. Fearing that Ann’s behaviour and hysterical outbursts would upset all the others, Mona took her into a separate room. Ann told her that Sylvia was dead, that her throat had been cut and that her pillow and bedclothes were covered in blood.

Nurse Long rang the security office at the main gate of the hospital a short distance away and requested immediate assistance. She also, as protocol demanded, contacted the assistant chief nursing officer on duty in the hospital.

The two security men on duty at the main gate ran from the security hut to the house. Ann, when running out of the house, had left the front door open, and they both entered number 1. They stepped over the discarded handbag and went upstairs, shouting as they climbed that they were hospital security.

The first room they entered was Ann’s own room. Finding nothing untoward there, they went into the next room, which was the bathroom. Becoming somewhat sceptical, they turned the short corridor and walked towards the front of the house. The first room they passed had a light on, and looking in they saw the body of a woman partially on the bed. They then walked on into the next bedroom and on looking in saw an unmade bed. The room appeared to be empty, but as they were turning to leave the room one of the men glanced down and saw a pair of legs on the ground on the opposite side of the bed, protruding between the bed itself and the front wall of the house. Without going any further into the room, and satisfied that this person was also dead, they left and went back downstairs. There they met the chief nursing officer, who was accompanied by the hospital doctor on call. The doctor briefly visited both bedrooms and looked without success for any signs of life.

All those present in the house at this time also noticed the broken glass in the kitchen window.

The doctor immediately went to number 5, where he examined Ann, who was becoming increasingly distressed as the enormity of what had happened began to dawn on her. She was treated for shock and then taken into the main hospital for observation and further treatment. The other residents of the five houses, who were becoming disturbed as news of the horrific fate of their friends filtered down to them, were also becoming agitated, and further medical assistance was sought for them also. Given her fragile mental state, Ann would from then onwards, following an arrangement between the Gardaí and the hospital authorities, be interviewed only with a medical person present.

Gardaí at the nearby Bridewell Garda Station were alerted by telephone by the hospital authorities. A patrol car manned by Susan McLaughlin and Michael McGrath was immediately despatched to the scene. Also in the car was a recruit garda who was being mentored by Garda McLaughlin. The gruesome sight that greeted him on what must have been one of his first days on duty would lead to his tendering his resignation within weeks. Happily, having spent some years working abroad, he returned to Ireland and rejoined the Garda Síochána, where he forged a successful career.

The gardaí logged their time of arrival at the scene as 6:20 a.m.

The scene and its immediate environs were immediately secured, and the names of all those who had entered the house that morning were established. When the gravity of the situation was relayed to the Bridewell Station, Sergeant Gerry McCarthy was sent over to take charge of the preservation of the scene. Using a roll of crime-scene tape he cordoned off the scene, including a large area of the public road outside the house.

I was contacted by phone at home and directed by the sergeant in charge at the Bridewell to go directly to the scene and ensure that all the necessary procedures were followed. I arrived at 7 a.m. and immediately requested that an independent doctor be contacted and asked to come to the scene to formally pronounce death. This is a requirement that gardaí must comply with before contacting the coroner’s office to obtain permission to engage the services of the state pathologist.

At 7:15 a.m. Dr Tom Flood (not his real name) arrived at the scene. I had worked with him on other murder investigations and knew him to be a reliable witness and one well versed in technical examination and in giving evidence. We both donned white forensic suits—overalls, gloves, masks and overshoes—a supply of which I kept in the boot of my car. Introducing ourselves for recording purposes to the garda in charge of scene preservation, we entered number 1.

The sight that greeted me there will remain etched on my memory for the rest of my life. I am often asked if gardaí and detectives ever get used to viewing murder scenes and murder victims. Having visited and viewed these two victims in situ I can honestly say that I hope never to regard any murder scene as normal.

On entering the scene, Dr Flood and myself went directly to the bedrooms, our role there being confined to the official pronouncing of death. In his subsequent report the doctor described in detail the various observable injuries suffered by the two victims and the positions in which they had been found. He would also make further comments about a number of strange details concerning Mary Callinan. He would note that her nightdress was pulled up around her breasts, and that she wore a slipper on one foot only. Most upsetting, however, was the presence of a red object protruding from her vagina, the blade of an electric carving-knife lying across her stomach, and a similar blade lying on the ground in close proximity to the body.

At 7:22 a.m. Sylvia Sheils was formally pronounced dead, and at 7:24 a.m. the doctor pronounced Mary Callinan dead also. He found that full rigor mortis was present in Sylvia’s body, while the process had not yet begun in Mary’s.

Rigor mortis—the ‘stiffness of death’—is one of the most recognisable signs of death. A chemical change after death causes the limbs to become stiff and difficult to manipulate. It begins between two and six hours after death, starting with the eyelids, neck and jaw. Over the next four to six hours it spreads to all the muscles, including internal muscles. Maximum stiffness occurs within twelve hours, and then it begins to dissipate, which can take anything up to three days.

The presence of rigor mortis is considered an approximate indicator of time of death. However, it is far from exact, given that so many factors can affect it, including body mass, muscle mass, age, sex, and the surrounding temperature.

In this instance what we had achieved so far in our inquiry would be considered good ‘textbook’ investigation. Within an hour and a half of the discovery of the bodies the scene had been cordoned off, a number of witnesses to the finding of the bodies had been identified, the formal pronouncing of death had been made, and a witness who appeared to have been in the murder house and survived had been found, was medically treated and in hospital.

As I left the scene that morning to alert other members of the Bridewell Detective Unit and to brief my superiors I couldn’t help but feel a bit smug about how the investigation was progressing at this early stage. Little did I know what lay ahead with this investigation, or that it would take fifteen years to resolve. Had I known I might not have felt so pleased with myself.

I returned to the scene at 10 a.m., where I met Prof. John Harbison, the chief state pathologist. A full team from the Garda Technical Bureau, consisting of members from the Photographic, Fingerprint, Mapping and Ballistics Sections, were present, having been requested by Superintendent James Joyce, then the officer in charge of the Bridewell Station.

In all instances where a body has been found and foul play is suspected the scene must be preserved and ‘frozen’ to allow the pathologist to view the body in situ. This takes precedence over all other procedures. There are some very special occasions when a body can be removed before this—for example when medical intervention might be attempted, when leaving a body might be a source of danger to other people, or when leaving it in place might cause it to suffer further damage or actual loss. Other than that, the body remains in the situation and in the position it was found in.

For the second time that morning I donned a forensic suit. I accompanied Prof. Harbison and briefed him about the extent and nature of the examination performed by the doctor earlier. By coincidence, we were joined that morning by Dr Marie Cassidy, who is now chief state pathologist, having succeeded Prof. Harbison. She had arrived at Dublin Airport that morning to begin her first day as deputy chief state pathologist. On learning of her impending arrival the Garda authorities had despatched a car and a fast driver to the airport to bring her directly to the scene. Instead of