The riddle of the fake papers and the missing wife
Wife of ‘self-deporting’ Irishman vanished without a trace in 2007
AN Irishman at the centre of a near decade-long mystery involving his missing wife must leave his three children and the United States within weeks after pleading guilty to using false papers to renew a driving licence.
Paschal Delahunty, 51, pleaded guilty in a court in New Jersey to displaying a driver’s licence under a false name when he went to renew his papers in 2013.
Under the terms of the plea deal, Delahunty, who has lived for most of his time in the US going by the name Joseph Murphy, agreed to ‘self-deport’ to Ireland later this month. Delahunty, an illegal immigrant, used the name Joseph Murphy and a false birth date when he successfully applied for a green card in 1990. He has been in prison since his December 2014 arrest.
A judge in Bergen County in the north of the state sentenced him to time served on condition he leaves the country. Delahunty’s former lawyer believes the investigation and prosecution of Delahunty is linked to the disappearance of his wife Liza, a still unsolved mystery that gripped north New Jersey in the summer of 2007.
Joseph Rem told the Bergen County Record investigators never came close to finding any evidence linking Delahunty to the disappearance of his wife, who suffered from depression and misused painkillers.
Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli denied the claim that this was an attempt to punish him for failing to find a link, saying: ‘It is disingenuous to suggest that law enforcement should turn its back and ignore someone who has not only entered this country illegally, but has defrauded both our federal and state government to do so.’
In interviews following the August 19, 2007, disappearance of Liza Murphy, 42, Delahunty told detectives he had arranged for the couple’s three then school-age children to leave their Emerson home so he could confront her with evidence she was having an affair. There was an argument that lasted some 15 minutes, Delahunty said. Then, he said, his wife walked out of the house, leaving her phone, medicines and cigarettes.
That was a Sunday but Delahunty did not report her missing. Authorities found out she was missing on the Monday after receiving a tip from an anonymous caller, who said she had received a call from the couple’s distressed daughter. ‘It made our job a lot more difficult,’ retired Detective Sergeant George Buono told the Bergen County Record, referring to the delay. The search for Liza involved hundreds of law enforcement officials and volunteers.
In a bizarre twist, on the Thursday after she went missing, Delahunty stepped out on to a busy road and was struck by a car – but he recovered.
His false identity emerged during the missing person’s investigation, according to reports, but appears not to have been followed up by officials.
However, his past finally caught up with him when he renewed his licence.
‘Delahunty went by the name Joseph Murphy’