A one-night stand, his pregnant wife and a murderer undone by his coolness
SINÉAD Webster was standing in her kitchen cradling her six-weekold baby boy. She was firing a series of questions at her husband that were, just moments earlier, completely unthinkable.
‘Roy, if you have something to say, say it now,’ she demanded.
It was the Tuesday morning after Easter and gardaí had turned up at her door asking her husband about a woman missing since the previous Friday. Anne Shortall was reported missing by her family and the last person the missing woman had contacted by phone was Sinéad’s husband Roy.
‘Did you hurt her?’ Sinéad asked. ‘Yes,’ Webster replied. ‘Did you hit her?’ she asked further
‘I hit her with a hammer,’ he answered.
A stunned garda watching the scene unfold took over the questioning. ‘Where is she, Roy?’ he asked.
‘She’s in the workshop,’ replied Webster.
Sinéad, clutching the couple’s newborn son, glanced out the kitchen window where the workshop was visible. ‘Our workshop?’ she asked. ‘Yeah,’ he said. With that the young mother let out a deep gasp. In that instant she realised life as she knew it was over. The devastation was palpable and the noise that Sinéad let out was one of indescribable pain.
‘The gardaí knew the magnitude of what they were listening to,’ a source told the Irish Mail on Sunday. ‘It was a traumatic scene really for everybody.’
On Friday, Webster, 40, was found guilty by a unanimous verdict of a jury at the Central Criminal Court of murdering Anne Shortall, 47, after she claimed she was pregnant and threatened to tell his wife.
He was charged after a successful Garda investigation led by Sergeant Fergus O’Brien.
Webster beat the mother of three about the head with a hammer, wrapped her face and hands with duct tape and drove her to his home, where he hid her body in his workshop for four days.
The father-of-two from Ashbree, Ashford, Co. Wicklow, had admitted manslaughter but denied murdering Ms Shortall on April 3, 2015, claiming he lost control when he carried out the frenzied attack.
Up until that point, Webster had an idyllic life. He had two beautiful young children, a loyal wife, a lovely home and a successful business.
Webster was the owner of Ashwood Kitchens By Roy Webster, a luxury kitchen manufacturer.
He was well known and respected by people in Wicklow.
His business was booming and life seemed good. His parents, who are aged in their 80s, have been left devastated by their son’s crime and his two young children are now saddled with his murderous legacy.
‘It all came tumbling down in a 30second to one-minute period of time in the house with a succession of questions,’ the source said.
‘Her son was only six weeks old at the time this happened, so that would be a very joyous time in a person’s life really, and then for this bombshell to hit her that day the gardaí went out to the house… you could actually see her life crumbling around her really.
‘Two families’ lives crumble into dust in front of the garda’s eyes,’ our source added.
Until that point, Sinéad was completely oblivious to the dark secrets her husband had been harbouring. She had no idea that, while she was pregnant, her husband had had a one-night stand with Ms Shortall after meeting her in the Forge pub in Wicklow town.
She had ‘no clue’ that her husband was blackmailed by Ms Shortall for money or that he later took a hammer to her head.
Webster and Ms Shortall had known of each other but did not know each other personally until they met that night.
It began as a one-night stand, but ended with catastrophic consequences for two families. Webster had a pregnant wife at home, as we;; as a young daughter.
He had never come to the attention of the gardaí before and was respected in the community.
Ms Shortall, on the other hand, had three grown-up children, grandchildren and brothers and sisters. But she was financially stuck.
Following their one-night stand, Webster said Ms Shortall told him she had become pregnant and demanded more than €7,000 for an abortion. It was later established that she was not pregnant.
She threatened to ‘reveal all’ if he did not pay. Webster instead picked up a hammer and battered her across the head a number of times.
Ms Shortall had been reported missing on Good Friday 2015 and a young garda began investigating.
‘When she went out to meet Roy Webster, she left her phone charging in the house. She also left her cigarettes behind.
‘She would never go out without her cigarettes or her phone. One of her daughters checked her phone to see if they could get any clue as to where she was. They went in and reported it to the gardaí.
‘There was a text on her phone
‘It all came tumbling down within a minute’ Webster had a pregnant wife at home
Victim’s brother killed himself weeks after killing
that said “outside Leitrim,”, so then the gardaí went along to the Leitrim pub in Wicklow town and checked the CCTV at the time the text was sent. Young garda Neil Doyle goes along. He is dealing with the missing person’s aspect. No crime has been committed at all at this stage,’ our source continued.
‘The daughters rang the number that the text messages were associated and they got the name Roy. They ask, “Who’s this?” and he replied, “Roy. Who’s this?” So now we have the name Roy. Then with the CCTV we were able to establish different things. On Tuesday the gardaí went to the Webster family home.’
Ms Shortall’s family was also destroyed by Webster. Her brother James, who identified her remains, killed himself weeks after her death.
‘A brother and sister gone in a couple of weeks of each other. One murdered and the other suicide, both unnatural deaths,’ our source said.
They said the successful conclusion was the result of solid police work.
‘Everybody worked very well on it. Garda Neil Doyle went about his job very well, which meant when the detectives came in on the job he had a good bit of groundwork done.
‘Garda Michael Hall did super work in the case. Sergeant Gabriel Plower also did great work on the CCTV and Sergeant Colm Corrigan on the exhibits. The family liaison officer was great too. Garda Catherine O’Rourke, she had to deal with the large family and all the emotion.
‘These are the unheralded heroes in these types of investigation.
‘These people worked extremely hard. You don’t have unlimited resources in a place like Wicklow, but they are a good experienced set of investigators, which was an important one to get right.’
Ultimately, the jury didn’t believe Webster’s defence that he just snapped – possibly because of a few key elements to the crime.
A source argued: ‘I’m not sure he snapped. In this case there were unexplained times that were crucial to the case.
‘An hour and a half before Roy collected Anne is unexplained and 20 minutes after the crime is unexplained time, while everything else is vividly and graphically explained.
‘The act of killing Anne Shortall is graphically described by Roy in his account to the gardaí. Roy came in and chatted away to us completely normal, is how you would describe. There was no shaking and sweating at the palms. There was nothing like that to suspect Roy of anything untoward.’
The coolness, of a killer may have proven to be his downfall.