Inquest told of movements of suspect in 1973 murder
A SUSPECT in the loyalist sectarian shooting of a young father was a Housing Executive plumber who was working on the day of the killing, a witness has said.
Daniel Carson (28), from Dunmurry, was gunned down as he left work at a hardware merchant in the Shankill area of Belfast in November 1973. He was the only Catholic still employed at the company as the Troubles deepened.
A colleague named a man known as S1 as firing several shots from a Webley revolver at a T-junction, close to the victim’s workplace.
A neighbour of S1, Richard Morrison, told a new inquest into the death: “I remember the wee lad coming out to fix the toilet bowl.” He added: “It was the toilet bowl that I think he broke and he got annoyed, the wee fella, and I told him I would get it fixed.”
Mr Morrison said S1 left his home, returning 20 minutes later. He finally left Mr Morrison’s house at about 5pm.
Two soldiers visited S1’s house shortly after Mr Carson’s death and he told them he had been asleep at the time of the shooting, records from the time which were mentioned during the inquest, showed.
S1 was interviewed by police but released without charge after a woman, known as witness A, withdrew her evidence, an earlier hearing was told.
Witness A had claimed the suspect vowed to clear all Catholic “Taigs” from the area.
A person had been seen with arms outstretched and holding a gun as the non-political family man was shot in the head through a car window.
Papers before the inquest did not say which loyalist group was responsible for the killing.
A Belfast coroner has opened a fresh investigation into Mr Carson’s death after a direction from Northern Ireland’s Attorney General, following representations from the dead man’s family.
Mr Carson’s death is one of 56 legacy cases from the Troubles being reviewed. Two years after the reviews were ordered by the Lord Chief Justice, almost all of them haven’t started amid a political row over funding.