RIDDLE OF COLLINS AMBUSH ‘SOLVED’
Pathologist leads cold case review in RTE series
IT’S Ireland’s greatest unsolved mystery – and now former state pathologist Marie Cassidy may have cracked the case.
She told of the “startling findings” set to be revealed in an RTE investigation into Michael Collins’ death to mark his centenary.
In Cold Case Collins she heads up a team of experts to solve the biggest riddle in Irish political history – who killed Michael Collins?
She said: “We have come up with what we think is a definitive answer.
“We have some artefacts and the team has made some startling findings.
“That’s part of the thrill of doing this job. There is always something else you can find.
“We now have a clearer picture of what happened.”
She said lack of answers dragged many names into the frame and led to various theories on what happened at Beal na Blath on August 22, 1922.
She added: “People have had it hanging over their heads.
We have a clearer picture of what happened
REVELATIONS
“New revelations into his death are the whole purpose of doing the cold case.
“It comes out as a very comprehensive review.”
The pathologist, who was in charge of postmortems in Ireland from 2004 to 2018, gathered forensic scientists, criminal investigators, military strategists, archaeologists, archivists and historians to inform her findings.
How challenging was it to carry out a cold case of a killing 100 years ago – where there was no inquest, no death certificate, no ballistic evidence, and a long-buried body?
She said: “It was fascinating actually. You have to work with the facts you have.
“Any time I am doing a cold case review, you have to work with whatever material is taken at that time.
“Since then, techniques have evolved – what was norm for the 1920s is vastly different from the norm today. “So you just have to work with the materials you have. “My expertise is in wounds and injuries – I’m interested in holes in people, marks and injuries. “I can’t say much about the circumstances. “That’s why we have all these other experts – military and battlefield experts I didn’t even know existed. It was getting all of that
together, and building up the picture as it goes along.
“We all know Collins died from a head injury and we all know he was shot.
“Even the speculation around that – I think people will be surprised that we’ve been able to push that on a bit.”
She agrees with her predecessor, the late Professor John Harbison’s conclusion – in an RTE documentary in 1988 – that Collins was shot by a high-velocity rifle.
But she agrees the lack of evidence and information about Collins’ death is strange. She added: “Surely they
must have some kind of records. The death must have been registered somewhere.
“It seemed highly unusual, but, during that time all inquests and inquiries into deaths were suspended, because this was a war and it was a death in a war. I thought it was odd.”
With Collins such a figure of debate,
MARIE CASSIDY ON THE MICHAEL COLLINS’ CASE
she is expecting the findings of the review to be controversial. She said: “I have no axe to grind and like any murder case, I’m not interested in who did it, or why they did it – only what killed them, what happened. “People have held these theories dear to hear for a long time and some people will go, ‘Exactly what I thought’. While others will say, ‘What a load of rubbish, they don’t know what they’re talking about’.” ■ Cold Case Collins will air this Wednesday at 9.35pm on RTE One.