No evidence found on farm where DJ’s body was located
AN eight-person Garda search team found no significant evidence when they combed farmland where a Tipperary man’s body was later found, a murder trial has heard.
Gardaí visited the farm four days after Bobby Ryan, a DJ who went by the name ‘Mr Moonlight’, went missing and were given ‘full permission’ by Mr Ryan’s girlfriend, Mary Lowry, to search her property.
Ms Lowry’s ex-boyfriend, Patrick Quirke, 50, of Breanshamore, Co. Tipperary, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Ryan, 52, on a date between June 3, 2011, and April 2013.
Mr Ryan’s body was discovered by Mr Quirke on Ms Lowry’s runoff pit almost two years after he went missing. Prosecutors claim the discovery was staged and that Mr Quirke had killed Mr Ryan because he was jealous of his relationship with Ms Lowry.
Yesterday jurors heard from several members of a Garda search team who visited the Lowry farm in Fawnagown, Tipperary, on June 7, 2011. They noticed the tank on the land but said that it only had a ‘minimal’ amount of waste in it at the time – not enough to hide a body.
Garda Sergeant Cathal Godfrey told the court that the search was in relation to a report of a missing person filed three days earlier. He said gardaí were aware Mr Ryan had stayed in Ms Lowry’s house overnight and left the house at around 6am on the morning of Remains search: Bobby Ryan June 3. ‘The last place he had been seen was on the lands of Mary Lowry,’ he added.
Sgt Godfrey said that when he arrived at the farm Ms Lowry ‘immediately’ gave him full permission to carry out a search. A warrant was not required.
He carried out a risk assessment of the area before briefing the other members of the search team. He told the court that it was ‘raining heavily’ on the day of the search.
The sergeant told the jury that himself and seven other members began the search at around 9.30am and finished just before midday.
All sheds and outhouses where searched as well as a number of adjoining fields.
A nearby quarry was also searched.
Sgt Godfrey told the court that they initially searched together as a large group and then split into two smaller teams.
‘Nothing of any evidential value was found,’ he told the court.
Sgt Godfrey told the court that he saw an ‘open slurry pit’ on the farm, but the amount of slurry in the tank was ‘minimal’ and not enough to hide a body.
Under cross-examination by lawyers for Mr Quirke, he said no
Not enough slurry in pit to hide a body
photographs or videos were taken by gardaí during the search.
He said they had not searched the inside of the dwelling house on the farmland as that was not the job they had been given.
Another garda, Garda Michael Fitzgerald, said he did not take any notes and did not see anyone taking photographs.
He described seeing a ‘gold Toyota Corolla’ in one of the larger sheds he searched. He said he got into the car to have a look inside and noted that the boot was open.
Garda John Geary, who also took part in the search, described how the gardaí had split into two teams of four to search the lands and then joined together and walked up and down to cover all the land.
He said he did not take any notes and did not see anyone taking photographs. He also said nothing of any consequence was found.
Earlier, another garda told the jurors that Mr Ryan’s daughter Michelle and her aunt, Ann Stapleton, had called to Bansha Garda Station in Tipperary at around lunchtime on Friday, June
‘She had opened back door of van’
3, 2011, to report Mr Ryan missing. Garda Thomas Neville said Michelle Ryan was in a ‘very distressed state’ and her aunt told him she was concerned her father might have taken his own life.
Garda Neville said he created a missing-person high-risk incident on the Garda Pulse system.
That afternoon, Garda Neville said that while he was on his way to Ms Lowry’s home he received a radio message to say that Mr Ryan’s van had been found at a car park leading into the nearby Kilshane Woods, so he went there instead.
He said he was told Ms Ryan had entered the car, taken a diary from it and gone into the woods.
He said he presumed she had gone into the woods to look for her father.
He also told the court that Ms Lowry told him she had opened the back door of the van to look for Mr Ryan.
Garda Neville said he received no direction to secure the area as the scene of a crime.
The trial continues.