Severed arm and suicide note ‘link to buried rapist’

GARDAí believe the remains of a convicted rapist, whose severed arm was found on a beach in Dublin six years ago, may be buried in a park popular for family walks.

Fresh information in the macabre case has led the gardaí to search Tolka Valley Park in Finglas, for the remains of James Nolan, a 46-year-old man who had served jail for rape and burglary in maximum security prisons.

DNA testing on an arm found on Dollymount strand in February 2011 confirmed it to be that of Nolan.

He was last seen alive in November 2010 when he collected methadone from the Wellmount Clinic in Finglas.

An inquest found that his arm had been severed cleanly after his death and that tattoos had been cut from the skin.

Gardaí have been investigating the case for six years and confidential information precipitated the search.

It is understood that details in a lengthy suicide note, written by Nolan’s suspected killer and sent to family members, sparked the fresh investigation.

Gardaí suspect Nolan was strangled to death in Glasnevin Cemetery before his body was brought to a premises in north Dublin and dismembered.

The search, which involved a cadaver dog and a forensic archaeologist, in an area around the North Road Gate, is expected to take three weeks.

Nolan was jailed for 14 years in 1986 for the brutal rape of a woman in front of her partner.

He was subsequently jailed for three years for a burglary in Booterstown, south Dublin, in 2005.

In January it emerged that the gardaí spent two days searching a lake in Co. Monaghan, after a relative of Nolan’s disclosed the suicide letter to gardaí.

In the letter, the man is believed to have described butchering Nolan before dumping some of his remains in Lough na Glack lake near Carrickmacross.

The arm was cut clean and tattoos removed