‘Killer is threat to women..how could he not be’
Victim’s family fear strangler is set for freedom
THE family of a young woman strangled to death by her fiance have warned he will kill again if he is freed from prison.
Evil Gerard O’hara used his shoe lace to throttle Lisa Doyle, 24, in an unprovoked attack as she lay in bed beside him.
Now her family have expressed their fear that he could be freed in less than four years – posing a serious danger to women.
Twisted O’hara admitted to gardai he’d had dark thoughts about hurting a woman for years before he murdered popular retail worker and part-time model Lisa.
Lisa’s sister Angela Doyle said: “I think it’s shocking that he could be walking the streets in less than four years.
SCENE
“I do believe he is a threat, how could he not be?”
O’hara walked into a garda station in Carlow at 6am on a Sunday with a handwritten note saying he’d done “something terrible”.
As officers were putting him into a cell and taking his belt and shoe laces he pointed to the laces and told them he’d used one of them.
Retired detective Brendan Murphy was first on the scene and found Lisa fully clothed in bed – meaning O’hara dressed her after he killed her. The couple – who were due to marry in June 2010 – were captured on CCTV holding hands and smiling after a night out in the pub just hours earlier.
Ex Detective Murphy said: “I asked him did they have a row, he said no.
“He said they were lying in the bed and she was lying on her left hand side with her back to him, and he had his left arm under her shoulder and her neck.
“He said he lifted his left arm and started to tighten it on her and then he used his right one to strangle her.
“At some stage then he reached down beside the bed and took up the runners, and took the lace out of it and tied it around her neck and strangled her.”
Investigating gardai were baffled as they tried to establish a motive.
Murphy said: “He started to tell us that he had these dark thoughts from time to time, and he wanted to know how it felt to hurt somebody or strangle somebody.”
GUILTY
O’hara pleaded guilty in the Central Criminal Court in October 2010 – but not before another woman came forward revealing he’d tried to strangle her.
She told gardai he tried to strangle her after a one-night stand but she punched him in the jaw and he fled.
The shocking murder in the small village of Leighlinbridge, Carlow, is the subject of Maru inar Measc on TG4 on Wednesday at 9.30pm.
Angela said: “Looking back there were controlling tendencies. This was someone who was intent on killing my sister.
“I think every day she’s with me...what I miss is being able to hug her, being able to talk to her, to laugh with her.”
Looking back there were controlling tendencies... he was intent on killing my sister