Son may have been instigator in farm deaths
A file on the Kanturk murder-suicide is expected to be sent to the DPP within weeks. reports
GARDAÍ investigating a murder-suicide in Kanturk have found that a father and son were “equal partners” in a “joint criminal enterprise” to shoot the older brother who stood to inherit the family farm.
As the inquiry into the shocking killings draws to a close, detectives are investigating whether the overlooked younger son may have been the driving force in a deadly conspiracy they believe was days in the planning.
Tadg O’Sullivan (59) and his son Diarmuid (23) shot older brother Mark (26) in the bedroom of the family home in Assolas, near Kanturk, on the morning of October 26 last year. They took their own lives but allowed wife and mother, Anne O’Sullivan (60), to escape in what gardaí suspect was a cruel punishment for favouring her elder son Mark.
Gardaí believe the shocking events were the culmination of a festering grievance over Anne’s decision to leave the bulk of a 115-acre farm she inherited from her own father and uncle to Mark, in her will.
Detectives believe Tadg O’Sullivan lured his wife and their older son, who had been staying with friends, back to the family home and have investigated whether he influenced his younger son to join in his murderous pact.
But an informed source close to the inquiry suggested that Diarmuid, an accountancy graduate, was more likely the instigator of the plan, motivated by intense anger at his mother’s decision to favour Mark in her will.
Investigators had to consider who was the “most educated, who was the most manipulative” and whether sibling rivalry was at play, the source said. “You can factor all of those issues. Who is the person with the degree in accountancy, who was the person with most to gain, who was the person who wanted it more, who was the person who had animosity more towards the mother?”
Ultimately both were equally culpable, the source said: “From a criminal point of view, it is fully apparent that they both acted in concert, jointly, in a common enterprise and they were both, in terms of the actus reus, equal partners in every respect. It matters little who pulled the trigger four times and who pulled the trigger two times.”
A file on the case is expected to be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) within weeks. As gardaí are not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths, the DPP is expected to clear the way for North Cork’s coroner to hold an inquest into the case later this year.
The shocking events unfolded at the O’Sullivan farm in Assolas, a townland close to the village of Castlemagner, outside Kanturk. The couple did not farm the land themselves, but leased it. Anne worked as a nurse, and Tadg worked in a local garage. Their sons were high achievers.
Diarmuid was known locally as a studious and quiet young man. He studied for four years at the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and he was about to be conferred with a first-class honours degree in accountancy at the time of his death. Dr Dan Collins, head of student affairs at CIT, said staff at the department of accounting and information systems described him as “a young man with promise, who was a hard worker, respected, and held in high regard by staff and students alike”.
Mark graduated from the University of Limerick with a business and law degree and moved on to do a master’s degree at University College Cork. He was active on Facebook, posting photographs of outings with friends, his time studying in Greece, and his graduation.
The brothers had parttime jobs locally, Mark in a local nursing home and Diarmuid in a local hardware store.
It appears difficulties in the family arose after Anne O’Sullivan was diagnosed with a serious illness and she prepared to organise her affairs. She decided to leave the farm to her elder son, which would leave the land intact. The dispute this caused festered for months, with Diarmuid and their father pitted against Mark and their mother.
But the likely catalyst for the violence, detectives believe, was a solicitor’s letter intended for Anne but intercepted by her husband which set out the terms of her will. At the time, Anne and Mark were staying with friends in the locality, rather than in the family home. They returned home on Sunday, October 25, on the promise of peace.
Tadg and Diarmuid O’Sullivan set the plan in motion overnight, destroying the house phone and the mobile phones, locking the gates to the farm, and arming themselves with two .22 rifles, one a semi-automatic. Anne O’Sullivan awoke at 6.40am to the sounds of gunshot and witnessed her husband and son standing at Mark’s door.
Mark died instantly after being hit by seven bullets. Gardaí say spent shells recovered at the scene suggest that most of the shots were fired from the semi-automatic rifle, but they are not certain whether Tadg O’Sullivan or his son fired the weapon. “It is not 100pc which one of the two fired the majority of shots,” said the source. “We are undecided to a great degree which one of the two was carrying the gun at that time.”
The bodies of Tadg and Diarmuid O’Sullivan were found by a fairy ring beside their guns. Gardaí recovered a 12-page suicide note attached to Diarmuid’s leg which outlined his grievances. It also made clear that Anne was deliberately spared so she would have to live with the torment. A short note from Tadg was found in the house.
Detectives also recovered notes from Mark, in which he recorded his concerns over the dispute and its potential consequences.
The Garda file is expected to set out the facts of the killings, based on the results of ballistic and technical examinations of the scene and interviews with dozens of witnesses. More than 50 statements have been taken from relatives, friends and neighbours of the O’Sullivan family, along with statements from the significant numbers of gardaí called to the scene of what was at the time a suspected siege situation.
Gardaí have spent considerable time taking a detailed statement from Anne O’Sullivan, the only witness to the killing, on the events that unfolded that morning and the roots of the family dispute.
The inquiry team has examined letters, notes and computers recovered from the O’Sullivan household.
They have also interviewed a friend of the O’Sullivan family who was very concerned for Anne O’Sullivan and Mark and contacted local gardaí some time before the killings.
But the witness did not identify the O’Sullivan family to local gardaí at the time but instead presented them with a “hypothetical situation” involving an unnamed family and a dispute over a will, and sought advice on behalf of the mother.
The Garda investigation has been “very comprehensive”, the source said: “Three people died and we want to get the facts.”
Anne O’Sullivan attended both funerals. Diarmuid and Tadg were buried together in Castlemagner and a separate funeral was held for Mark in Kanturk.
In a tribute read to the congregation, his close friend Sharmila Rahman spoke of his “unbreakable bond with his mother”. “Mark had such a big heart and so much love to give. I can’t imagine how much effort and love he put into being Anne’s son.”
‘Anne was deliberately spared so she would have to live in torment’