Nash loses last throw of the dice
Ex-detective relieved multiple murderer’s freedom bid rejected... and he should end days behind bars
A RETIRED detective who helped nail serial killer Mark Nash said he’s glad the brute has failed in his final bid for freedom.
Nash – the only person in the history of the State to be tried and convicted twice for two separate double murders – had his case thrown out in Strasbourg last week.
The evil serial killer will die in jail after his application to the European Court of Human Rights over his conviction for the Grangegorman murders was rejected.
Retired detective Alan Bailey told the Irish Sunday Mirro said he hopes the ruling finally draws a line under the case.
He added: “I feel this is closure now of a saga that has gone on for 23 years.
“There was always a huge concern that he might get out and that justice wouldn’t be done.
“He’s a man I think that nobody could say that he doesn’t deserve to be behind bars in prison – given the horrific crimes he committed.”
Nash has been in jail since August 17, 1997 – the day after he killed Catherine Doyle, 28 and 29-year-old Carl Doyle at their home in Castlerea, Co Roscommon.
Shortly afterwards he admitted double murder the at Grangegorman five months earlier – but withdrew his confession and was not prosecuted.
A breakthrough in DNA in 2009 which matched blood on his velvet jacket to the victims led to his conviction.
Nash, 46, serving four life sentences, was convicted for the killings of psychiatric patients Mary Callanan, 61, and 60-year-old Sylvia Shiels.
They were found butchered in their beds at their sheltered accommodation on hospital grounds in Orchard View, Grangegorman on March 7, 1997.
Mary had been an inpatient from 1966 and Sylvia was a former civil servant who was first admitted in 1980 suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
The gruesome details of the women’s deaths were not revealed to the public at the time.
Their throats had been cut and both suffered savage genital and facial injuries with a carving fork and other implements.
One of the first officers on the scene,
Mr Bailey said the sight of their bloodied bodies haunts him to this day. He said: “It was the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
“It was the innocence of the two victims that gets me – they were everybody’s mother or grandmother.
“They were asleep in their beds. It was the savagery and brutality of their deaths that got me. I’ve never witnessed a scene like that.
“I spent 37 years in the gardai but I never, ever saw anything like that in all my career.”
Nash’s first double murder conviction came in 1998 for the horrific killings of the Doyles, who had four young kids, at their home.
When gardai arrived at the bloodbath, they discovered a seven-year-old boy and two crying babies. Catherine’s sister Sarah Jane Doyle pretended to be dead after Nash, her then boyfriend, pushed her down the stairs and repeatedly hit her over the head with an iron bar.
Ms Doyle, who was 19 at the time, dragged herself to a neighbour’s house to raise the alarm.
She had met Nash, who had a daughter, four months earlier in the Vatican bar in Dublin city centre and they had decided to visit her family.
But he exploded into a violent rage during the house party knifing Catherine 16 times in the head.
Carl was stabbed Carl six times and a blade was partially embedded in his chest.
Gardai told the Central Criminal Court of the horrific, bloodstained scene they came upon.
Nash showed no emotion as he was given the two life sentences for murder and another eight years for the attack
on his former girlfriend. In the early stages of the Grangegorman investigation 24-year-old Dean Lyons from Tallaght, South Dublin, was charged after he “confessed” to gardai.
But Nash told detectives how he killed the two women and was able to describe details that had not been published in the media.
Lyons, who had learning disabilities, died in 2000, apparently from a heroin overdose and an apology to his family was later published in the media.
Fresh DNA tests put Nash back in the frame and was eventually tried after his High Court bid to restrain the DPP from charging him with the double murder failed.
Nash’s legal team based their case on prosecutorial delay, adverse publicity, prejudice due to unavailability of witnesses and the manner of care and storage of evidence.
Mr Justice Michael Moriarty, in rejecting Nash’s application, said the Grangegorman double murder was as horrific a crime as virtually any in living memory.
A garda witness at the 2015 trial told how the women were found dead in their beds.
One had a kitchen fork protruding from her body, with two blades from an electric carving knife nearby.
Recalling the disturbing details of the case Mr Bailey, who wrote a book about the murders and investigation, said: “I was the one who said all along they had the wrong man.
“Myself and another Garda always maintained the wrong person was detained for those murders, and we were unpopular with colleagues for our stance. I’m glad justice has finally been done in this case. This was the last throw of the dice for Nash and his appeals were rejected every step of the way.
“I can’t see how he’d ever be eligible for parole given his record, and behind bars is the best place for him.
“This is a closure that I’m glad to see.”
They were asleep. It was the savagery that got to me
RETIRED GARDA DETECTIVE