00:00
This episode contains mention of coercive control and domestic violence.
00:04
If you are affected by any of these issues raised in this podcast, help is available. Contact Women's Aid on 1800 341 900.
00:15
This episode also contains reference to suicide.
00:18
If you need help, please reach out to the Samaritans on 116 123.
00:28
Blue lights flash across the dark waters of Donegal Bay.
00:33
At the end of St. Ernan's Pier, a white Ford Fiesta sits motionless in the dark.
00:38
The only way out is blocked. A guarded patrol car blocks the way.
00:43
Detectives armed with submachine guns step from their vehicle. They prepare to fire.
00:50
Their headlights and rooftop spotlights converge on the car.
00:54
For a moment, nothing happens.
00:57
Then a man emerges from the car, halfway in, halfway out.
01:02
In his hand he holds a spotlight, and its beam of light sweeps across the Gardaí.
01:08
The officers hold their ground.
01:10
They tell the man to put his hands in the air.
01:14
He ignores them.
01:16
He then reaches back into the car with his free hand.
01:20
The two Gardie watch and see he now holds a rifle.
01:25
Two warning shots from the Gardie crack through the night.
01:29
The man drops the spotlight.
01:31
He looks as if he's moving to fire.
01:34
Two more warning shots from the guardee.
01:37
One shouts to him. The next will be through your head.
01:42
The man crouches beside the car. Then he slips back inside behind the wheel.
01:48
The engine snarls.
01:50
He revs it. He revs it at the Gardaí for twenty seconds.
01:54
He then drops the rifle onto the tarmac.
01:58
The two detectives begin to approach the man, slowly.
02:01
The white Ford Fiesta lurches forward.
02:05
The detectives jump clear as the car tears past them, accelerating towards the edge of the pier.
02:11
It breaks through the fences towards the sea, and for a moment the white car seems suspended in the air.
02:19
Then it plunges into the waters of Donegal Bay.
02:23
Within seconds, only the car's wheels can be seen above the surface.
02:29
Somewhere beneath the dark waves is the man every Garda in Donegal has been searching for.
02:58
When someone is killed in Ireland, the Gardaí call in a specialist unit of forensic crime scene examiners from the Technical Bureau.
03:06
For 25 years, I was one of the detectives on that team.
03:10
My name is John Sweetman.
03:12
My job as a Garda detective in the Technical Bureau was to read the evidence that couldn't speak for itself.
03:19
I learned to see what others might miss.
03:21
Fingerprints smudged on the handle of a door. Weapons disguised in everyday objects.
03:27
handwritten notes that revealed more than the writer ever intended.
03:31
The smallest traces often unraveled the big story.
03:35
And now, I'm here to tell you those stories.
03:39
In this podcast from Go Loud, I take you inside some of Ireland's most haunting investigations.
03:45
This is Lines of Inquiry, a Go Loud original podcast that follows the evidence step by step and tries to uncover the real story behind the headlines.
03:56
In this episode, a mother and daughter targeted by a man consumed with a dark obsession.
04:15
On the evening of September the 18th, 1988, Guard Inspector Jim Sheridan had received word of a shooting in the car park of Sligo General Hospital.
04:25
Within minutes, officers were being dispatched across Sligo.
04:29
Checkpoints went up on every major route in and out of town, as Gardie attempted to contain the situation.
04:37
As squad cars converged on the hospital, Sheridan and his colleagues tried to understand what they were dealing with.
04:45
Only four months earlier, Sligo General had been the scene of another gun tragedy.
04:50
Student nurse Sarah Tarpey had been shot dead by her former boyfriend before he turned the gun on himself.
04:58
The memory still hung heavily over the hospital and over the guardee who had investigated it.
05:04
What greeted them that Sunday evening brought those memories rushing back.
05:10
The hospital entrance was crowded with anxious visitors and shaken staff, people gathered in small groups, trying to piece together what had happened and why they were being prevented from leaving.
05:23
At the centre of the commotion stood six distraught members of one of the best-known families in the area, the Gillespies.
05:31
Among them was Anne Gillespie's uncle, Patrick.
05:35
While officers worked to secure the scene, Patrick tried to make sense of what he had just witnessed.
05:41
He told the guardee that he'd almost been shot.
05:45
I should be dead, he said.
05:47
The gun jammed.
05:51
Outside, beyond the glow of the hospital entrance, Gardie began examining the car park.
05:57
Patrick's metallic green renal remained where it had come to a stop, the driver's door hanging open.
06:04
Above it, a shattered street lamp cast only a faint light over the scene.
06:11
As officers moved closer, the extent of the damage became clear.
06:16
One tyre had been blown out, a rear passenger window was gone, the back windscreen had been shot through, and both rear doors were locked from the inside.
06:29
The Gardaí shone a torch inside the car.
06:32
There was blood and broken glass everywhere, and in the back seat, two bodies.
06:43
Whatever had happened in the hospital car park that evening, Patrick Gillespie had seen it unfold.
06:50
And now investigators needed him to tell them exactly what had happened.
06:55
Sitting inside Sligo General Hospital with his family, he began recounting the nightmare.
07:03
Earlier that evening, Patrick had travelled to the hospital with his wife and their three children and another relative.
07:10
They were joined by Annie Gillespie and her daughter, 18-year-old Anne.
07:16
The eight family members had travelled from Ballybuffet to visit the children's 79-year-old grandmother in the orthopaedic unit.
07:24
Shortly before 9.30pm, visiting hours ended and the family prepared for the journey home.
07:31
The hospital car park was dimly lit and unusually quiet as the eight of them walked towards Patrick's metallic green Renault.
07:39
An hour-long drive back to Donegal lay ahead.
07:43
Anne and Annie climbed into the back seat.
07:46
Patrick was halfway into the driver's seat when the screech of tyres shattered the stillness.
07:53
A white Ford Fiesta XR2 came hurtling into the car park and stopped abruptly behind the Renault, blocking it in.
08:01
A man stepped out, carrying a .22 semi-automatic rifle.
08:07
The sight of the weapon triggered immediate panic.
08:10
Patrick's wife and the children turned and ran towards the safety of the hospital.
08:15
The gunman walked towards the Reynolds.
08:18
He held the rifle low at his hip, pointing it at the vehicle.
08:22
He spoke to Anne. He told her to get out of the car.
08:26
He told her he wanted her.
08:29
Inside, in the back seat, Anne and Annie locked the doors and pressed themselves together.
08:36
Mammy, Mammy, he's going to kill me, Anne screamed.
08:41
The gunman moved to the rear passenger door and yanked at the handle.
08:45
When it refused to open, he stepped back, raised the rifle to his shoulder, turned away from the car and fired.
08:53
A nearby streetlight shattered, plunging the area into deeper darkness.
08:59
Patrick stood frozen beside the driver's door. Barely a metre separated him from the gunman now.
09:06
He was so close he could see down the gun's telescopic sight.
09:11
He could see the gunman's eyes fixed on him.
09:15
The rifle's barrel was pointed directly at his chest.
09:19
Then the gunman pulled the trigger.
09:22
There was a click.
09:24
The gun had jammed.
09:26
The gunman cleared the jam with a hard pump, loading a new round.
09:31
He told Patrick he was giving him a chance to run for his life.
09:36
The gunman stepped backwards, moving towards the rear of the car.
09:40
For a moment he appeared to hesitate.
09:44
Then he fired.
09:46
The bullet tore into the rear tire, blowing it apart.
09:50
He then stepped behind the car and raised the rifle once more.
09:55
He aimed through the back window.
09:58
The shot shattered the rear windscreen.
10:01
Glass exploded inward.
10:03
Annie screamed for her daughter.
10:05
You've shot Anne, she cried.
10:08
Patrick ran.
10:10
He sprinted towards the hospital entrance as more shots rang out behind him.
10:15
Staff, patients and visitors ducked for cover.
10:20
By the time Patrick reached the doors, the attack was over.
10:27
Eighteen-year-old Anne had been shot multiple times, including wounds to her neck, face and thigh.
10:34
One of the bullets had passed through her mother's hand as Annie clung desperately to her daughter.
10:40
The gunman then moved to the side window.
10:44
As Annie turned towards him, he fired again, shooting her in the face.
10:50
And then, with that scene of tragedy and destruction in his wake, the gunman fled into the night.
11:00
Within moments, emergency calls flooded into the communications room at Sligo Garda Station.
11:06
Hospital staff and visitors reported that shots had been fired and that the gunman had fled the scene.
11:14
Patrick struggled to comprehend what had happened.
11:17
Yet one fact was painfully clear.
11:21
The gunman who had stared at him through the rifle's telescopic sight was Anne's boyfriend of four years, John Gallagher.
11:31
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11:35
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12:20
Thanks again to our partners, Butternut Box. Now, back to the podcast.
12:31
Word quickly spread through Garda radio traffic across Donegal.
12:36
Checkpoints were established on the roads throughout the county as officers searched for Gallagher's white Ford Fiesta XR2.
12:45
Shortly before 10pm, half an hour after the murders, he burst through a checkpoint in Ballyshannon.
12:53
Around 20 kilometres further on, approaching another checkpoint outside Donegal Town, Gallagher stopped, reversed, turned the car around and sped back the way he had come.
13:05
Two armed detectives and a sergeant chased him, reaching speeds of 150 kilometres per hour.
13:13
With the guardie in close pursuit, Gallagher left the main road and turned towards St. Ernan's Pier, a narrow strip of quay jutting out into Donegal Bay.
13:23
There was nowhere left to go. Ahead lay only dark water.
13:28
Behind him, the guardee in their patrol car were closing in.
13:34
Cornered at the water's edge by the two-armed guardee, Gallagher refused to surrender.
13:40
Moments later, he drove his white Fort Fiesta off the end of the pier and into the dark waters of Donegal Bay.
13:49
Within seconds, only the car's wheels remained visible above the surface.
13:55
Without hesitation, a detective sergeant and another Garda stripped off and dived from the end of the pier into the bay.
14:03
The fiesta had come to rest just below the surface.
14:07
Fighting the darkness and the cold water of the Atlantic, the officers made their way to the submerged car.
14:14
Inside, they discovered Gallagher still in the driver's seat.
14:19
He had handcuffed himself to the steering wheel.
14:23
The two guardee worked to manoeuvre him upright, managing to get his head above the waterline.
14:29
When they checked him for signs of life, they found no breath and no detectable heartbeat.
14:35
By then, an ambulance had reached the pier.
14:39
A nurse who had arrived at the scene shouted instructions from above as the rescue effort continued in the water.
14:47
Around them, the bay churned with activity.
14:50
Officers struggled to keep Gallagher above the surface, while others worked to free him.
14:57
Eventually, bolt cutters were brought forward and the handcuffs were severed.
15:02
Gallagher was pulled from the water onto the pier, where efforts to resuscitate him began immediately.
15:09
Within minutes, he was breathing again.
15:16
Sirens echoed through the night as the ambulance raced towards Sligo General Hospital, guard of vehicles close behind.
15:25
As they pulled into the hospital grounds, the grim irony was not lost on the officers accompanying it.
15:32
The man at the centre of the manhunt was being brought back to the very place where the night's violence had begun.
15:46
As John Gallagher was treated inside Sligo General Hospital, Gardie remained at the crime scene, still working around Patrick Gillespie's bullet-ridden Reynolds.
15:57
One of the rear doors now stood open.
16:00
Bent over the back seat was Father Ray Milton.
16:05
Inside, Anne and Annie Gillespie remained where they had been shot, huddled together in death.
16:12
Father Milton administered the last rites, offering what little comfort and dignity could still be given.
16:20
For some of those present, the scene felt hauntingly familiar.
16:25
Less than five months earlier, Father Milton had stood in the same hospital grounds, praying over the body of Sarah Tarpey after her killing.
16:35
Hospital staff struggled to comprehend that such tragedy had returned to their doorstep.
16:42
It is said that lightning doesn't strike twice, but who can believe it after this terrible tragedy?
16:49
It's all totally unbelievable, one staff member said.
16:56
As dawn broke over Sligo General Hospital, Patrick Gillespie's Renault remained in the car park.
17:03
Curtained hospital screens had been wheeled into place around the vehicle, shielding it from the public and the growing press presence outside.
17:11
The car would remain there for most of the morning as forensic officers painstakingly worked through the scene, photographing, measuring and collecting evidence before it could be removed for further examination.
17:25
Among the items recovered was Annie's handbag.
17:28
Inside, detectives found three packets of crisps that she had bought for the children to eat on the journey home.
17:36
Meanwhile, John Gallagher lay in intensive care at the same hospital.
17:41
Still in a serious condition after driving into Donegal Bay, he was under a round-the-clock guard.
17:48
Detectives kept watch from an unmarked car outside while armed security remained stationed near his bedside.
17:56
Investigators were waiting for medical clearance to begin questioning him.
18:03
That morning, Anne and Annie's relatives tried to comprehend what had happened to their family.
18:09
They made one immediate decision.
18:12
Anne's grandmother, Annie's mother, would not be told.
18:17
Elderly and frail following her recent hip surgery, they believed she was too vulnerable to bear the news.
18:25
For those closest to Anne, there was another painful reality for them to deal with.
18:31
They had been aware of John Gallagher's obsession.
18:35
They knew she had been terrified for her life.
18:38
But nobody had imagined it would end in murder in the car park of a hospital.
18:44
The questions that followed inevitably turned towards the institutions that had crossed paths with John Gallagher in the week before the murders.
18:54
Had opportunities been missed? Had warning signs been ignored?
18:59
It was true that had the rape complaint remained in place, Gallagher may have been in custody.
19:05
Likewise, had Gardie pursued an attempted murder charge arising from the choking incident and a notoriously difficult charge to prove in a domestic situation at the time, he may have also been in custody.
19:19
Yet the reality was more complicated.
19:22
Under Ireland's constitutional framework in 1988, even if Gallagher had been charged with rape or attempted murder, the High Court could still have granted him bail.
19:33
He could have been entirely free to walk up to Anne on the grounds of Sligo General Hospital that Sunday and murder her and her mum, and he could still have done this regardless of whether he was ordered to stay away.
19:46
St. Conall's Psychiatric Hospital had released Gallagher because there were no criminal charges keeping him in custody.
19:53
Had he been formally charged with the attempted murder before entering psychiatric care, he would not have been a voluntary patient, free to sign himself out.
20:03
He would have been a prisoner of the state, unable to leave without judicial authority.
20:08
But because he remained uncharged, the hospital acted within its legal powers and Gallagher was allowed to leave.
20:17
Ann Gillespie was trapped in a blind spot between a psychiatric system that couldn't hold a man without a charge and a legal system that likely wouldn't hold a man with one.
20:28
While waiting for doctors to declare Gallagher fit for interview, Detective Sergeant John Fitzgerald, the newly appointed lead investigator, and his team worked around the clock.
20:39
Their immediate priority was to build the strongest possible case before Gallagher ever entered an interview room.
20:47
Detectives gathered forensic evidence, took witness statements and painstakingly reconstructed the movements of everyone involved, determined to establish a timeline that could withstand the closest scrutiny in court.
21:03
Fitzgerald was unwilling to take any risks.
21:06
He wouldn't question Gallagher until the hospital provided written confirmation that he was both physically and mentally capable of being interviewed.
21:15
The caution was deliberate.
21:17
Any suggestion that Gallagher had been delirious, heavily medicated or psychologically impaired could later provide fertile ground for a defence challenge, particularly if he made incriminating admissions during questioning.
21:32
Until that medical clearance arrived, detectives focused on the evidence.
21:37
Before they could ask Gallagher a single question, they needed to understand exactly who he was.
21:44
That meant reconstructing not only the days and hours leading up to the murders, but the 22 years that had shaped him.
21:52
Piece by piece, investigators began forensically rebuilding the life of John Gallagher.
22:00
John Gallagher was the youngest son and third youngest child in a family of nine children, four boys and five girls.
22:08
By 1988, at 22 years old, he had watched all of his six older siblings marry and leave home.
22:17
As the eldest of the three children still living with their parents, it was no surprise to his family that he had been discussing a future with Anne Gillespie and had begun thinking seriously about marriage.
22:29
As a boy, Gallagher was known to have a quick temper, but relatives didn't regard it as anything out of the ordinary.
22:37
That changed when he was fourteen and was involved in a serious van crash alongside one of his brothers.
22:43
His father would later say that John was never quite the same afterwards.
22:48
The accident appeared to mark a turning point.
22:52
He gave up football, gained significant weight and became increasingly self-conscious.
22:58
At school he became disruptive and argumentative.
23:02
Family members believed that the crash had affected him in other ways too.
23:06
He struggled with reading and writing afterwards and spent a period receiving psychiatric treatment.
23:13
Eventually, he transferred to another school, but the problems followed him.
23:19
He frequently argued with teachers, became involved in fights and ultimately left education altogether to work alongside his father.
23:29
The move into employment gave him a degree of independence at an early age.
23:34
By 17 he was driving regularly and had enough money to buy his own car.
23:39
Motoring quickly became an obsession.
23:43
Friends and acquaintances remembered him as a fast and aggressive driver who liked to speed through the town.
23:51
For all the concerns his family had during his mid-teens, they noticed a change when he began dating Anne at 18.
24:00
He appeared more settled, found work as a van driver and seemed to be taking greater responsibility for himself.
24:07
Yet warning signs remained.
24:10
He accumulated petty convictions for assault and malicious damage and could be prone to sudden bursts of anger.
24:18
At 19, after receiving compensation from his accident claim, Gallagher bought the car he had long wanted, a white Ford Fiesta XR2.
24:28
It became a source of pride and identity.
24:32
He drove it aggressively, at high speeds and with little apparent regard for the safety of others.
24:38
Alcohol was another recurring problem.
24:41
In the years before Anne and Annie's murders, Gallagher had periodically sworn off drink, at one point taking the pledge and remaining sober for a time.
24:52
Most recently, he had done so again, but on the night of the wedding, the fragile restraint he had tried to impose on himself collapsed.
25:01
And before that night was over, he'd fallen off the wagon and threatened Anne's neighbour with a knife.
25:09
As the day drew to a close on Wednesday, September 21st, Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald finally received the approval he had been waiting for.
25:18
John Gallagher had recovered sufficiently to be interviewed.
25:24
Sitting at Gallagher's bedside in Sligo General Hospital, Fitzgerald found Gallagher to be cold and detached.
25:32
There was no evident remorse for Anne and Annie Gillespie, a family who had treated him as one of their own for almost four years.
25:40
Outside, word had spread that the man at the centre of the hospital's second tragedy that year was about to face charges.
25:49
Small groups gathered beyond the hospital grounds, while upstairs Gallagher began making a statement.
25:56
He admitted shooting Anne and Annie Gillespie.
26:00
Once the interview was complete and the necessary medical clearances obtained, Gallagher was formally discharged from the hospital.
26:09
To avoid the growing media presence outside, Gardie first brought him across the road to Sligo Garda Station, where he was officially arrested.
26:18
Later that night, he was driven under escort to a special sitting of the district court before Justice James Gilvary.
26:27
There, Gallagher was charged with the murders of Anne and Annie Gillespie.
26:32
Asked if he had anything to say, he replied, She was my girlfriend for three and a half years.
26:39
I didn't mean to bring her to her death.
26:45
Following the brief hearing, Gallagher was remanded to Mountjoy Prison and ordered to appear before Ballymote District Court the following week.
26:54
Outside the courthouse his solicitor, Joe Carter, offered an early indication of the defence that was to come.
27:01
It is possible to kill a person lawfully.
27:04
The first thing you have to remember is that there is a difference between murder and killing.
27:15
The following morning, Annie and Anne's coffins lay side by side inside their local parish church, St. Mary's in Stranolaire.
27:24
Press photographers and cameramen were asked to stay away to give family and friends privacy.
27:31
The church was overflowing as Annie's nephew, Father Padre Gallagher, who had travelled from Birmingham, welcomed mourners as chief celebrant at the funeral mass, alongside St. Mary's parish priest, Monsignor Dan MacDyre.
27:45
In his homily, Monsignor MacDyre spoke of a community struggling to comprehend an unimaginable loss.
27:52
He asked the congregation to pray for Annie and Anne, who had been so grievously struck down in debts that were both unmerited and violent.
28:02
He also requested prayers for the Gallagher family in nearby Lifford, whose lives had likewise been shattered by the tragedy.
28:10
Outside the church, students from Anne's school formed a guard of honour, each carrying a red rose.
28:18
Anne's coffin was borne from the church by her cousins.
28:21
Annie's was carried by her four brothers.
28:26
Hundreds of mourners outside the church joined the funeral cortege to St. Patrick's Cemetery at Crossroads, and there Annie and Anne were laid to rest in the same grave.
28:40
For the people of Strannerloire and Belly Buffet, the funerals marked neither an ending nor the easing of grief.
28:47
Just five weeks later, the family suffered another loss when Annie's mother, whose broken hip had led to the hospital visit on the night of the murders, died following complications from her injury.
29:01
On the 11th of July, 1989, John Gallagher's trial began at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin, before Mr Justice Johnson.
29:11
After ten months in Mountjoy prison and admitting to killing both Annie and Anne, public expectation was that Gallagher would plead guilty.
29:20
To the prosecution, the public and the Gillespie family there was no mystery left to solve.
29:27
Gallagher had admitted pulling the trigger.
29:30
He had admitted killing Anne and Annie.
29:33
Most expected a murder conviction and a life sentence.
29:37
But behind the scenes another possibility was emerging.
29:42
Gallagher's legal team were preparing to argue that he had not been criminally responsible for his actions.
29:49
If they succeeded, the consequences would stretch far beyond the courtroom.
29:55
Standing in the dock in a navy blue pinstripe suit, John Gallagher entered a plea of not guilty.
30:03
His defense team argued that although he was now sane, he had been temporarily insane at the time of the murders.
30:11
They claimed he had been out of control, incapable of exercising normal judgment or self-restraint.
30:19
Under Irish law in 1989, a defendant could not simply enter a plea of insanity at the start of a trial.
30:27
Instead, the defence had to proceed through a standard plea of not guilty, and then persuade the jury that, while the accused had physically committed the acts, he lacked the mental capacity to be held criminally responsible.
30:42
The prosecution focused on dismantling the defence's claim that Gallagher had suffered a temporary psychotic episode.
30:50
Their case rested on proving premeditation and demonstrating a pattern of controlling and abusive behaviour towards Anne before the murders.
31:01
The eight men and four women of the jury heard that, after the confrontation that Sunday morning, Gallagher didn't go home, calm down or reflect on his actions.
31:11
He didn't heed the advice of family members who had urged him to leave Anne alone.
31:17
Instead, he drove to his home in Lifford, retrieved a .22 calibre rifle that had been stored behind his father's wardrobe, placed it in his car and followed Anne and her family to Sligo General Hospital.
31:31
To the prosecution, these were not the actions of a man acting on a sudden impulse.
31:36
They were the actions of someone determined to get what he wanted, and unwilling to accept no for an answer.
31:43
But ultimately, the question of whether John Gallagher had been legally insane at the time of the murders came down to the testimony of two psychiatrists.
31:54
The first, a consultant psychiatrist from Dundrum Central Mental Hospital, introduced a new element to the case.
32:02
He testified that slimming tablets Gallagher had allegedly been taking in massive doses may have gravely impaired his judgment and emotional control.
32:12
According to the psychiatrist, such excessive use could produce symptoms including delusions of persecution, irritability, hyperactivity and, in some cases, psychosis.
32:25
A second consultant psychiatrist from the same hospital offered a more cautious assessment.
32:32
While he accepted that Gallagher may have been under the influence of the tablets, he told the court that he could find no evidence of a recognised mental illness.
32:41
In his charge to the jury, the judge noted that there had been no dispute that Gallagher had been taking excessive quantities of pills.
32:50
He also reminded jurors that Gallagher had lost six stone in less than three months.
32:58
On the 19th of July, 1989, after seven days and three hours of deliberations, the jury returned with its verdict.
33:08
John Gallagher sat in court with his head in his hands, occasionally crying and clutching a set of rosary beads.
33:16
By a majority of ten votes to two, the jury found him guilty, but insane.
33:24
The verdict meant that the jury accepted that Gallagher had killed Annie and Anne, but believed he had been suffering from a temporary psychotic breakdown at the time.
33:35
As a result, he was found not criminally responsible for the murders.
33:42
The Gillespie family had sat through every painful detail of the trial.
33:47
They had listened as witnesses described how Gallagher had tracked Anne down, armed himself with a loaded rifle, followed her to the hospital where she was visiting her sick grandmother, and then shot both Anne and her mother dead, all because she wanted to end their relationships.
34:04
Now, despite accepting that he had carried out the killings, the jury had found him not criminally responsible.
34:12
For the family, it felt like the final blow.
34:19
To many, the verdict seemed like a get-out-of-jail-free card.
34:23
The Gillespies knew better than most how manipulative Gallagher could be.
34:28
Their fear was immediate and deeply unsettling.
34:32
If doctors eventually decided that he had recovered, what was to stop him from walking free?
34:39
Unlike a prison sentence, there was no fixed term, no date circled on the calendar.
34:45
His future would rest in the hands of psychiatrists and review boards, and one day those same authorities could decide that John Gallagher was no longer a danger.
34:58
Anne's former teacher was devastated by the outcome.
35:02
She felt that it was a national scandal, that despite Anne's pleas for help, she would end up facing three days of terror before her eventual murder.
35:12
the anger spread far beyond the courtroom.
35:15
Across Donegal and Sligo, many felt that the verdict had somehow diminished Annie and Anne, reducing the horror of what had happened to a debate about Gallagher's state of mind.
35:27
Detective Sergeant John Fitzgerald, a veteran investigator who had worked on almost 30 murder inquiries during his career, never forgot the case, calling it the saddest of all cases he's worked on.
35:42
For those who had known Anne, memories of the case were inseparable from memories of the girl herself.
35:49
One former classmate later recalled, When I hear the name John Gallagher, I sometimes close my eyes and think of a beautiful, shy and well-mannered girl sitting beside me in biology.
36:01
Her long red hair, rosy cheeks, lovely smile and quiet personality will live with me forever.
36:11
For the Gillespie family, though, there was an added threat.
36:15
John Gallagher had not been sent to a prison.
36:18
He had been sent to a psychiatric hospital, and no one could tell them how long he would stay there.
36:24
Months?
36:25
Years?
36:27
Could the man who killed Annie and Anne walk back into the same community he had shattered?
36:45
The verdict may have ended the trial, but it didn't end the case.
36:51
Under the Trial of Lunatics Act, 1883, a person found guilty but insane was not sentenced in the conventional sense.
37:00
Instead, they were detained indefinitely at the pleasure of the government.
37:04
In practical terms, that meant John Gallagher's future lay not with the courts, but with the Minister for Justice.
37:11
The legislation, already abolished in England, remained on Ireland's statute books despite years of criticism.
37:19
A government report in 1978 had urged urgent reform, warning that the law was outdated and unsatisfactory.
37:28
Yet, more than a decade later, nothing had changed.
37:32
For the Gillespie family, that created a troubling reality.
37:37
A prison sentence, however painful, at least came with certainty. There was a judgment. There was a term of imprisonment. There was a release date.
37:47
Gallagher's detention was different.
37:50
No jury would decide if he should remain confined.
37:54
No court would periodically determine his fate.
37:57
Instead, his future would depend on politicians, civil servants, psychiatrists and medical reports.
38:05
And if those reports one day declared him well, the man who had killed Annie and Anne could potentially walk free.
38:13
And just four months after being admitted to the Central Mental Hospital, Gallagher began trying to secure his release.
38:22
Arguing that he was now sane, he launched the first attempt in what would become a years-long campaign against his detention.
38:31
The legal battles came one after another. Applications, appeals, reviews.
38:37
Each one forced the Gillespie family and the wider community to wait, knowing that at any point John Gallagher could be released again.
38:48
Years passed.
38:50
The extraordinary verdict that it shocked the country in 1989 gradually faded from the headlines.
38:56
But inside the Central Mental Hospital, Gallagher continued his fight.
39:02
Then, in 1996, something happened that gave his campaign new momentum.
39:08
In April of that year, the Inspector of Mental Hospitals submitted a report to the Minister for Justice, stating that he considered Gallagher to be no longer insane.
39:19
After questioning, this report was later withdrawn.
39:23
In September of that year, seven years after the trial, at his final appeal hearing, the clinical director of the Central Mental Hospital told the High Court that the hospital believed Gallagher was not mentally ill on the day he killed Annie and Anne, but suffered from a serious personality disorder.
39:42
He advised a phased release, saying, It is not in the best medical interests of Gallagher at the present time that he be immediately discharged into the general community, without completing, satisfactorily, a suitable phased release programme.
39:58
The hospital advised that if Gallagher absconded during the course of a phased release programme, he would not, by reasons of that fact alone, be imminently dangerous to the general public.
40:11
Three judges of the High Court rejected Gallagher's claim that his continued detention was unlawful.
40:18
There would be no immediate release.
40:22
but the pressure for greater freedoms didn't disappear.
40:25
Over time, the Minister for Justice approved a carefully managed programme of temporary release.
40:32
For six months, Gallagher was permitted to leave the hospital for one afternoon each month, accompanied by staff members.
40:40
The outings were presented as small, cautious steps.
40:44
Before long, they became routine.
40:47
Privileges gradually expanded.
40:50
By 1999, Gallagher was leaving the hospital unaccompanied to work as a forklift driver, part of a programme designed to prepare him for eventual discharge.
41:05
By July 2000, he was living in a low-security hostel on the grounds of the Central Mental Hospital.
41:11
He had bought himself a yellow Yamaha motorcycle, with money earned from a job in Sandiford.
41:17
Alongside day release, he was now being granted occasional overnight and weekend leave.
41:24
For those responsible for his care, Gallagher appeared to be progressing exactly as planned.
41:31
On a warm Saturday in July 2000, Gallagher was granted another approved weekend outing.
41:38
He told staff that he was going to visit a friend.
41:41
Before leaving, he packed clothes, books, letters and photographs.
41:46
Among them was a photograph of Anne and Annie Gillespie.
41:50
Then he climbed onto his yellow Yamaha and rode away.
41:55
He was due back by 7pm.
41:58
That time came and went.
42:01
Gallagher didn't return.
42:04
As concern mounted, staff attempted to contact him, but there was no response.
42:10
When he could not be located, the clinical director of the Central Mental Hospital sought to reassure the public, insisting Gallagher was not considered a danger.
42:20
Rumours spread that he had headed north on his motorcycle.
42:24
Gardie established checkpoints, roads were watched, ports and airports were alerted.
42:31
Still, there was no sign of him.
42:33
It was as though he had disappeared.
42:39
Days later, investigators received information that Gallagher might be in the Birmingham area where Patrick Gillespie had family.
42:47
The search widened across the Irish Sea.
42:51
Then, on the sixth day, another lead emerged.
42:55
Gallagher had been traced to Oxford.
42:58
Short of money and looking for a way to profit from his notoriety, he contacted the News of the World with an offer.
43:06
For £12,000, he would sell his story. £1,000, he reportedly said, for every year he had spent detained.
43:15
The newspaper agreed to arrange a meeting.
43:19
But there was a problem.
43:21
British press regulations strictly prohibited newspapers from paying criminals or fugitives for stories, unless there was an overwhelming public interest justification.
43:32
paying a man who had fled a psychiatric detention order arising from a double murder, crossed a line few editors were willing to defend.
43:41
And so the journalist tipped off the UK police, who in turn contacted the Gardaí.
43:47
The trap was set.
43:50
On the day of the meeting, Gallagher drove to a supermarket car park in Oxford, expecting to meet a reporter.
43:57
Instead, officers were waiting for him.
44:00
He was pulled from his car and detained under the provisions of the British Mental Health Act.
44:05
It appeared his years on the run were over.
44:09
Then came the legal reality.
44:13
Psychiatrists in England assessed Gallagher and consulted with the Central Mental Hospital in Ireland.
44:19
Their conclusion stunned Irish authorities.
44:23
Gallagher was not considered an imminent danger to himself or to others.
44:27
He had committed no offence on British soil, and because he was regarded as mentally well, the authorities had no lawful basis to continue holding him.
44:38
They were forced to let him go.
44:42
the Irish government immediately sought advice on whether Gallagher could be extradited back to Ireland.
44:48
But Gallagher was not legally classified as a convicted murderer serving a sentence, nor was he a fugitive from a criminal conviction. He was, in legal terms, an absconded psychiatric patient.
45:01
That distinction changed everything.
45:04
Because his detention stemmed from a guilty but insane finding rather than a conventional criminal sentence, the international extradition mechanisms normally used to return fugitives didn't apply.
45:17
As long as Gallagher remained outside the Republic of Ireland, there was effectively little the state could do.
45:24
The only realistic chance of regaining custody was if he voluntarily crossed back into Irish jurisdiction.
45:33
Until then, he was free.
45:38
For the Gillespie family, the news was almost impossible to comprehend.
45:43
The man who had admitted killing Annie and Anne was now living freely in another country, beyond the reach of the authorities.
45:51
The fear that had haunted them since the trial returned with renewed force.
45:57
Family members spoke of feeling abandoned by the justice system.
46:01
While Gallagher built a new life, they felt trapped in a sentence of their own.
46:09
For the next three years, Gallagher remained in England, largely unaccounted for.
46:15
Nobody could say with certainty where he was living.
46:18
Nobody could guarantee he would stay away.
46:21
Among those most affected was Anne's uncle, Patrick.
46:25
He knew Gallagher had lived nearby to his own children in England and admitted he constantly worried that one day he would return.
46:34
I am very frightened, of course I am. Who wouldn't be?
46:38
I always felt he would come back to finish it.
46:42
But while the Gillespie family were still living with the consequences of Gallagher's actions, Gallagher himself appeared to be moving on.
46:50
In England, he married and became a father, having three children.
46:57
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47:40
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47:46
In 2003, Gallagher moved to Straban in Northern Ireland to be closer to his extended family.
47:53
Straban sits less than a mile from Gallagher's hometown of Lifford, across the River Foyle and over the border in County Donegal.
48:01
It was only a 20-minute drive from Ballybuffet and Strangelare, where members of the Gillespie family still lived.
48:09
The man who had killed Anne and Annie was now living freely within a short drive of the communities forever marked by their deaths.
48:17
And while Gallagher was living in Straban, the legal landscape around his case began to shift.
48:24
For years, politicians had retained significant influence over the detention and release of those found guilty but insane.
48:32
Gallagher's absconding in 2000 and the public outrage that followed exposed the weaknesses of that system.
48:39
In 2006, the Irish government enacted the Criminal Law Insanity Act.
48:45
The legislation abolished the old verdict of guilty but insane and replaced it with not guilty by reason of insanity.
48:54
More significantly, decisions about detention and release would no longer rest with politicians.
49:00
Those powers were transferred to an independent mental health review board.
49:06
The change would prove critical.
49:09
Neither the Gillespie family nor the wider public knew it yet, but the new law had opened a door that Gallagher would eventually walk through.
49:21
Twenty years after the murders, the Gillespie family were still waiting for a sense of justice that had never arrived.
49:28
As relatives prepared for a commemorative mass in Stranalar in 2008, Anne's uncle spoke publicly about the family's frustration.
49:37
He said, We have gone through all the emotions, heartache, pain, bitterness, anger.
49:45
We were even afraid at one stage that Gallagher might still be a danger to the rest of us.
49:51
Thank God the passage of time has eased the bitterness, but the pain never goes away.
49:58
I think it will always be with us until justice is done, but that doesn't seem likely.
50:05
He described the profound sense of injustice that had lingered for two decades.
50:10
It's as if we are the guilty ones.
50:13
We are the ones being punished.
50:16
We have lived with the loss of our loved ones every day while he walks around as free as any of us, as if this terrible crime had never happened.
50:25
Because he hasn't spent a single day in prison and because he is now apparently a free man, we feel we will never get justice.
50:34
That's hard to live with.
50:36
He also reflected on another tragedy.
50:39
Five months before Anne and Annie were killed, Sarah Tarpey had been murdered by her partner at Sligo General Hospital before he turned the gun on himself.
50:49
I often thought it was quite possible that Gallagher was influenced by the earlier tragedy.
50:54
He actually made some reference about it to Anne when she tried to end the relationship.
51:03
As the years went on, Gallagher continued to watch developments from across the border.
51:09
By 2012, five years had passed since the new review system had come into operation.
51:15
Gallagher knew two things.
51:18
First, politicians no longer controlled decisions relating to his case.
51:23
Second, the psychiatrists and medical teams who had monitored him for years had consistently maintained that he was sane and posed no threat to the public.
51:34
He began to calculate.
51:37
Twelve years had passed since he had disappeared on his yellow Yamaha motorcycle.
51:42
He had remained beyond the reach of the authorities. But now, for the first time, returning carried far less risk than staying away.
51:51
In May 2012, Gallagher made his move.
51:55
Crossing the border, he presented himself at the Central Mental Hospital and surrendered himself into their custody.
52:02
It was a gamble.
52:04
he was betting that the Mental Health Review Board would conclude that he was no longer mentally ill, no longer dangerous, and no longer subject to detention.
52:15
For the Gillespie family, the news came as another devastating blow.
52:19
It was only through media reports that Gardie and Donegal first learned Gallagher had returned to Ireland, and only through these local Gardie did the Gillespie family discover that the man who had killed Anne and Annie was once again in state care.
52:36
The circumstances prompted an apology from the Minister for Justice, but at the same time, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan announced that the original file would be re-examined.
52:50
Six weeks later, Gallagher's gamble paid off.
52:54
The Mental Health Review Board concluded that he was sane.
52:59
It further found that he posed no danger to himself or to the public.
53:05
the decision cleared the way for his release.
53:10
On Friday 29th of June 2012, 24 years after Anne and Annie Gillespie were murdered in the car park of Sligo General, John Gallagher walked free with no further restrictions.
53:24
Because the jury had found him insane at the time of the murders, he will never have a conviction placed against his name for the murders of Anne and Annie Gillespie.
53:47
Thank you for listening to this episode of Lines of Inquiry.
54:08
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54:20
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54:24
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54:32
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54:37
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55:04
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55:11
Lines of Inquiry is presented by me, John Sweetman. The podcast is created by Darren Cleary. Our executive producer is Owen Brennan. Senior producer is Siobhan Walsh. Producer is Sam Hobson.
55:25
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55:32
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55:40
Join me next time as we follow the evidence wherever it leads.
55:44
Because, in the end, everything done in the dark comes to light.
