UNBEARABLE LOSS OF A SON TO MURDER
DadD speaks of grief three years
Three years on from the shocking murder of his son, Michael Loughlin has described the time since as ‘ horrific’.
Jimmy Loughlin (20) was beaten to death by Richard McLaughlin at his home on Connolly Street in Sligo on February 24 th 2018 in a random attack.
McLaughlin, who had an address at The Laurels, Woodtown Lodge, Sligo, was subsequently found not guilty by reason of insanity of the murder of Jimmy Loughlin and was committed to the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, Dublin.
He broke down the door of Mr Loughlin’s house in the early afternoon on Saturday, February 24 th and beat him to death with a crowbar, while suffering from delusions brought on by paranoid schizophrenia. The two men had never previously had any contact.
It later emerged that hundreds of hours of YouTube videos were uploaded by McLaughlin in the months prior to the attack where he spoke about murder, rape and read from the Bible.
As the third anniversary of Jimmy’s death approaches, the Loughlin family still live with the harrowing memories of the shock and disbelief at what happened. For Michael, who lives with his wife Paula and three daughters in Ballygawley, the pain of losing their beloved son does not get any easier to bear.
“They’ve been horrific for everyone in our house,” he says of the last three years.
“The five of us, our extended families, Jimmy’s grandparents on both sides are still alive, our family in London and locally here in Sligo in Ballygawley and Ballintogher, it’s just hard to come to terms with. I suppose the worst thing about it is we’re still having to deal with the upcoming coroner’s inquest. We haven’t got any closure. It’s not getting any easier,”
Details of the day remain close to the surface for Michael and the family. On that Saturday afternoon, they were making their way in from their home in Ballygawley to see Jimmy and drop of some clothes, as he was set to travel to Poland with his girlfriend early the following week. “We think back to it a lot,” Michael says. “On the Saturday afternoon Paula and I left our home in Ballygawley at about a quarter past one, and we were heading into Sligo, into Jimmy, to drop him in some clothes because he was going to Auschwitz on the Wednesday with his girlfriend.
“We got a phone call coming in near Carraroe from Darragh, one of his friends, saying that there were a couple of ambulances outside of Jimmy’s house in Connolly Street, but he didn’t know what was wrong or what was happening. So we got there as quick as we could, it took six or seven minutes but felt like two hours.
“We got there and the Guards had tape across the street. We jumped out of the car in the middle of the road, ran up and said to the Guards to let us through, that’s our son’s house, we’re Jimmy Loughlin’s parents.
“They said no, no you can’t go through it’s a crime scene. We were crying on the road, waiting for them to let us in. They took us to the Garda Barracks, and probably 40 minutes of walking up and down the barracks like yo-yos, the Detective Inspectors came in and said that Jimmy had died. They had us go to the mortuary to identify his body with a detective in a white suit and Jimmy on the bed in there with a bandage wrapped on his head, it was just horrific, absolutely horrific.”
The Loughlins continue to hope for the coroner’s inquest to take place, where they hope questions they have can be answered.
“It’s a very hard thing,” Michael says, “because people will say we will get justice for Jimmy, but Jimmy wasn’t involved in anything, and nor were the Loughlins. We had no input into anything, we’re just innocent people.
“Because he was just innocent, attacked for no reason, and the person who did it was found not guilty by reason of insanity. So how do you get any justice, or what is justice? The main thing is we want the coroner’s sorted out, so we don’t have to keep waiting for it.”
As they await further developments, the Loughlin family continue to be extremely thankful to the local community in Ballygawley, Ballintogher and beyond for the kindness and generosity shown to them, not just at the time of Jimmy’s death but over the last three years.
“Coming from England, we had never seen funerals and the things involved in them, people coming to your house with food and drinks and everything when it happened. People were so caring. Jimmy absolutely loved Sligo, we loved Sligo and it’s just so unfortunate for something like this to happen here.
“That particular day, it was lovely and sunny, Ireland were playing Wales in the rugby and a lot of people told me that is when they found out, during the game, and they just couldn’t comprehend what happened. It was so random, and so terrible.
“We went to New York for Christmas, we had him with us for the whole week and he was in great form,
“Then that happened and all those memories of the holiday, while we still have them, we never really got a chance to think about them because of what happened to poor Jimmy.”