A killer foiled
Vicious criminal is back behind bars after brave shop manager halted robbery. Gardaí tracked hooded thief by DNA as rapist f led without scarf after a frenzied f ight
THIS is the moment a masked man was wrestled to the ground by a heroic shop manager just eight weeks after his release from jail for raping and killing a young woman.
The Irish Mail on Sunday’s exclusive pictures show Ian Horgan entering Sean’s Shop in Limerick wearing white gloves, with his hood up and a scarf covering his face.
The 31-year-old – who moved in with the sister of another rapist after his release from jail for the rape and manslaughter of Rachel Kiely –immediately jumped over the shop counter and went for the open till.
Seconds later, Horgan was grabbed from behind by the shop manager who had briefly stepped outside. When he returned, a violent scuffle followed, during which the manager pulled Horgan’s scarf away from his face.
Horgan managed to swipe €60 from the till before he fled from the shop. The shaken manager immediately called gardaí.
At Limerick Circuit Court this week, Sergeant Vincent Brick described the ‘frenzied struggle’ that led to Horgan losing his scarf. ‘He wouldn’t have been identified if it wasn’t for the shopkeeper pulling the scarf from his face,’ said an informed source
‘The CCTV was very clear but you could not see Horgan’s face, even after the scarf was removed.
‘But the gardaí were able to forensically analyse it and Horgan’s DNA was found all over it.’
The incident happened in November 2013, eight weeks after Horgan’s release.
Horgan was just 16 when he was arrested for raping and killing 22year-old beautician Rachel Kiely in a Cork park in 2000. Trial judge Adrian Hardiman described him as a ‘violent and sadistic man’.
Originally convicted of murder, Horgan appealed and was released on bail in January 2005 pending a retrial. But in September of that year he was returned to jail after being arrested and charged with robbery and the unlawful taking of a car at a post office. The owners of the post office were tied up in their own kitchen during the ordeal.
In 2006 he pleaded guilty to Rachel’s manslaughter and was convicted of her rape. He was sentenced to 12 years in jail, and in 2010, he received a further four years for the robbery.
On his release in late 2013 the MoS revealed he had moved in with Teresa O’Neill, whose brother Thomas was involved in a notorious gang rape in Cratloe Woods, Co. Clare, in 2004.
The MoS photo- graphed Horgan and Ms O’Neill together when he went to the social welfare office on Parkgate Street, by Phoenix Park, to pick up his first payment. A few days later, Horgan was stopped by gardaí in a car with child sex attacker Joseph Finnerty. The two were stopped together twice more by gardaí tracking their movements. When the MoS confronted Finnerty and asked about their association, he stared at this reporter before replying: ‘Go away with yourself, little woman.’ This week, Judge O’Donnell imposed a five-year jail term but suspended the last 12 months and backdated the sentence to when Horgan was arrested.