The Case I Can’t Forget
Series 3, Episode 4:
A Hometown Killing
On the night of October 13, 2010, eye witnesses called 999 when they discovered 18-year-old Niall lying unconscious on Castle Road in Dundalk, Co Louth. He had severe head injuries and was later declared dead at Beaumont Hospital.
The investigation to find Niall’s killers fell to Pat Marry. He had only recently promoted to the rank of Detective Inspector. “The step up from D. Sergeant to D.I. is immense. As the Senior Investigating Officer you manage and control the investigation. You make the big decisions. I was nervous, I won’t say anything else. I was nervous,” recalls Pat.
The investigation quickly revealed Niall had been on a night out with friends when he was caught up in an altercation. His friend Tierghnan O’Domhnaill remembers hearing the news.
“I thought, this can’t be right, it’s not in Niall’s nature to be in a fight, he’s the peacekeeper in everything,” he remembers
Niall’s father David went straight to the hospital, where doctors assessed Niall’s injuries and concluded he could never recover.
“The door opens and the nurse comes in. As soon as she sat down. I knew it was over,” says David. “And our world collapsed right there and then. That was it. Bang.”
David and Niall were very close. “If I was 17 or 18 around the time Niall was that age, I’d have loved to have been his friend. When his dad can turn around and say, I’d like to have been your mate, I think it says a lot about him.”
Now DI Pat Marry needed to piece together the events leading up to Niall’s death.
“We were able to establish that Niall and his two friends were confronted by approximately seven people – five males and two females”.
Investigations revealed one man was responsible for the attack.
But there was a problem. None of the gang were prepared to name who that man was.
“There were people who didn’t cooperate that could have cooperated. That was a big choke on the investigation. But I was determined to find out who did this, why they did it, and that they would be brought to justice.”
Meanwhile the killing left the local community, in shock
Michelle O’Keefe is editor of the Dundalk Democrat.
“Beyond the shock and horror, there was fear,” she recalls. “Parents were now left fearful for their young people going out at night.”
Pat and his team trawled the city for CCTV evidence and identified the gang drinking heavily earlier in the day. Among the gang was Douglas Ward, a well known criminal in the Dundalk area.
“We were all aware who Douglas Ward was. He was known to the Gardai, in connection to public order offences, maybe drug offences that kind of thing. He would have been known as a hard man. So he was at that stage a prime suspect”.
But still, none of his gang would name him as the man who attacked Niall.
Faced with a wall of silence, Pat’s only hope was to turn to forensic science to catch Niall’s killer.
A key piece of evidence was the T-shirt Niall was wearing the night he died, and which had been torn from him during the attack. Pat hoped it might reveal DNA of whoever assaulted him, and turned to Professor Martina McBride at Forensic Science Ireland.
“There was a mixed DNA profile present, and the profile matched Niall Dorr himself, which you might expect, but it also contained elements of Douglas Ward’s DNA,” says Martina.
Pat was now convinced Douglas Ward was Niall’s killer. But he still had a long way to go before he could prove it, and bring Ward before the courts.
A Hometown Killing takes viewers through the unexpected twists and turns of the investigation, as it appears Douglas Ward may escape conviction.
But a committed forensic investigation and a dramatic last minute turn of events sees Ward finally plead guilty to manslaughter, before one final twist lays the case to rest forever.
The Case I Can’t Forget is produced by Rare TV Ireland Ltd and Green Inc Film and Television Ltd