Confusion over lady’s hair clip found in tank
A GARDA in charge of exhibits in the Mr Moonlight murder trial has said he doesn’t remember being told about a lady’s hair clip taken from the tank in which the victim’s body was found. Detective Garda Kieran Keane was giving evidence in the trial of Patrick Quirke, 50, who denies the murder of Bobby Ryan, 52, a part-time DJ going by the name Mr Moonlight, in 2013.
Mr Ryan’s body was found by Mr Quirke in an underground tank on his former partner Mary Lowry’s farm at Fawnagown, Co. Tipperary, almost two years after he went missing. Detective Garda Keane told prosecuting counsel Michael Bowman SC yesterday that he was appointed as exhibits officer in 2011 following Mr Ryan’s disappearance.
It is his job to secure all exhibits, he said, and he tracks them using an exhibits chart. Item 33 on this chart referred initially to a bag containing cable ties and pipe covers recovered from the tank and handed to the exhibits officer by Garda Larry Stapleton.
Following an examination by a forensic scientist in January of this year, the chart was updated to state that the bag also included a hair clip. Lorcan Staines SC, for the defence, asked Detective Gda Keane and Garda Stapleton about the broken tortoise-shell lady’s hair clip.
Gda Stapleton told counsel he bagged the hair clip along with other items taken from the tank and handed the bag to Detective Gda Keane. He said he did not write on the bag what was contained within it as this was not his practice and there was no space on the bag for that purpose.
The witness also said photos were taken of everything that was taken from the tank, including the hair clip. Mr Staines said those photos were not made available to the defence until November 2018, more than five years later, and at a time when Mr Quirke was awaiting trial. The witness said he couldn’t answer for that.
He further told Mr Staines that he told the exhibits officer what was in the bag but agreed with Mr Staines that Det Gda Keane did not include the hair clip on the original chart. Mr Staines suggested it would be ‘highly unlikely’ that Gda Keane, who was doing his best to be accurate, would have failed to note the hair clip if he was told of it.
Mr Staines further put it to the witness that he did not make a statement about this until fiveand-a-half years after the fact and questioned how he could be so sure of what he told Detective Gda Keane.
Gda Stapleton said he would have told Det Gda Keane about the hair clip because that is what is in his notes from the time. He added: ‘I know from the way I wrote it that’s what I told to Garda Keane.’
Det Gda Keane told Mr Staines that he does not remember the conversation with Garda Stapleton but said he would have noted on the chart everything that he knew was contained within the bag. Mr Staines suggested to him that it is ‘highly likely’ that he was not told about the hair clip. The witness replied: ‘I can’t recall what Larry Stapleton told me.’
Earlier in the trial it was suggested the chart available to gardaí contained a reference to the hair clip while the one disclosed to the defence did not. Mr Staines told Det Gda Keane there is no suggestion that he acted improperly in carrying out his duty and the garda accepted this.
The witness further explained to Mr Bowman that the exhibits chart was changed in January 2019 to include the presence of the hair clip following the examination by Forensic Science Ireland. He said it is a matter of routine that the chart is changed, updated or amended when new information becomes available.
The court also heard evidence from a Garda fingerprint expert and crime scene examiner who said he was unable to take fingerprints from Bobby Ryan as his remains were too decomposed.
Detective Garda Shane Flannery said he had attended the postmortem examination for Mr Ryan on May 1, 2013, with the intention of taking finger and palm prints.
‘On this occasion, I was not able to because of the decomposition of the body,’ he told the court.
Separately, veterinary surgeon Kieran O’Mahony, owner of the Glen Veterinary Clinic in Tipperary Town, told the court that in 2010, he had diagnosed one of Mr Quirke’s cows as suffering from BVD – bovine viral diarrhoea. He said this cow was not one of Mr Quirke’s original herd.
He said it had been discussed that the cow could have previously belonged to Mary Lowry’s late husband, but that he had not presumed this.
Ms Lowry has told the court previously that Mr Quirke was continuously asking her for money, saying the cattle he had bought from her had a disease and had died. She said he wanted her to reimburse him because those cattle had infected his.
Mr Quirke, of Breanshamore, Co. Tipperary, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Ryan on a date between June 3, 2011 and April 2013. The prosecution claims Mr Quirke murdered Mr Ryan so he could rekindle an affair with Ms Lowry, 52.
The jury was told yesterday that the trial may now run for an extra two weeks, until March 22.
‘Photos taken of everything’ ‘Not able to take fingerprints’