Memorial vandalised as teen’s murder still unsolved
Father speaks out about the unspeakable pain caused by killing of 21-year-old and says: ‘There are limits to what a family can endure’
THE family of a young man found dying on the roadside in Swinford, Co Mayo, last August have said there are limits to what they can endure after a floral tribute they laid at the spot where his beaten body was abandoned was vandalised and removed.
The chief suspect in the killing of Englishman Joe Deacy, 21, in Swinford last August is still living in the town. A large floral tribute to the young man had been laid metres from where Mr Deacy’s comatose body was found at 6am on a Saturday morning last August.
The murder of the third-year PWC apprentice, who was on holiday at the time, has created deep divisions in the Mayo town.
Gardaí are now investigating the theft of the display, which said ‘Justice for Joe’ and was laid by his family last weekend. It is believed the flowers were taken in the early hours of Thursday.
Last Sunday, several hundred people, many of whom had travelled from Britain, attended events in the town to mark the anniversary of his death for which nobody has yet been charged.
Led by his mother, Alison, father, Adrian, and sister, Charlotte, they attended an anniversary Mass and then led a procession to the house where the young man was found unconscious and face down in the garden by a passerby at 6am on August 12 last year.
On the day of the commemorative march there was nobody in the house but the family who live there were back there this week.
The Deacys and their friends laid flowers at the entrance to the house. Mr Deacy had been staying at the house on the morning he was killed. Reacting to the theft of the floral tribute, Joe’s father Adrian told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I’m saddened and disgusted that anyone would stoop so low as to steal our memorial wreath. The people of Mayo were so kind and considerate to all of my family and friends last weekend, in what was a very emotional time.
‘For somebody to now carry out this criminal act sadly tarnishes the kindness shown to us.
‘However, please rest assured that while the wreath has been removed, our fight for justice for my beloved son will continue. As we have repeatedly stated, someone knows something, and hopefully they will have the courage to come forward and assist the gardaí in finding the perpetrator of this brutal murder,’ he said. ‘The family have been very dignified throughout this whole tragedy but there are limits to what people can endure.’
A community group leader in the town who declined to be named said the murder had ‘torn the town apart’. ‘It is extremely sad,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows everyone here and no-one wants to talk openly about it.’
The chief suspect is a former talented sportsman, but the MoS understands he no longer plays. Joe’s grandparents both came from Swinford but his father doubts he’ll return again. ‘I came back this time because the guards said it would be a good way to generate some publicity,’ he said. ‘It’s beyond my comprehension that people aren’t more angry and outraged by this.’ He called for the man who killed his son to come forward and confess. ‘It’s not like we don’t know what happened, to a degree,’ he told the local Mayo News. ‘We all know…. It’s a close-knit community and someone has to talk… I would assume they [the people who know what happened to Joe] have been through a lot. They haven’t succumbed in spite of the pressure they have had put on them, but eventually we hope the pressure will get to them. I think eventually their conscience will get the better of them… you would hope.’ Adrian, who was divorced from Joe’s mother about 10 years ago, knew how lucky he was to be so close to his son, who lived with him in St Albans. ‘The life we had was fantastic, he’d do his thing, I’d do mine. Supporting West Ham was our thing we did together, we were season ticket holders. I knew I was lucky, I never took it for granted that we got on so brilliantly.’ But Joe’s relationship with Ireland, particularly with Co. Mayo, was so strong and deep that his father often referred to it as ‘Joe’s great love affair’.
He played Gaelic football for a local club in his native Hertfordshire and he followed the Mayo team compulsively. He watched every game on TV that he couldn’t attend in person, texting his Irish relatives throughout.
As a child he travelled from his home in St Albans to the west of Ireland with his family every summer for a two-week holiday. Once he turned 16 and was allowed to fly over on his own, his visits became more frequent.
He was usually here up to five or six times a year. But his sense of belonging was shattered in the cruellest way imaginable on the morning of August 12, 2017.
It’s known that Joe and a friend went to a pub in Kiltimagh the night before, a Friday. Kiltimagh is a village about 5km from the house he was staying in at Gortnasillagh. All that night he kept in touch via Snapchat with his father’s cousin Michelle’s two older children, Lauren and Ryan. Michelle lives in Claregalway and he often stayed with her on his visits.
‘He sent a video of himself in Kiltimagh and he was fine. He got back to the house at about 1.30am and sent them several Snapchats from in the house and he was fine,’ said Michelle, who lives in Mayo.
‘Around 3.45am he sent the last ones, they showed his face and I think he was going to bed. He was fine. Lauren took a screen grab of one of them. He was so happy, he was always happy.’
The following morning at around 8am, Michelle got a phone call from her sister telling her to get to Castlebar Hospital as quickly as she could, that Joe had been in an accident. Adrian, who was in England, also got a panicked call.
‘A guy cycling past the house that morning saw something that looked like a body in the front garden,’ he explains. ‘He knew the people who lived in the house, so he phoned them. And they subsequently phoned my cousin, who lives in Swinford. He then phoned all around, including me.’
An ambulance had been called and by the time Michelle made it to the hospital, Joe was in the ICU.
‘I was met by the doctor and the guard,’ she said, tears welling in her eyes. ‘They said they thought he’d fallen outside and there was an injury to his head. I went in and saw him, he was on a ventilator and had a black eye.
‘I asked a nurse if he was going to make it, she didn’t say no, but I knew... Then the doctors called me in, at first they weren’t going to take him to Beaumont, but then they said they were, so I thought there must be hope. They just kept saying he had a massive injury to his head. He was flown up by helicopter while I drove up.’
Adrian flew into Dublin around lunchtime that day.
‘I couldn’t go in and see him, I just couldn’t do it,’ he said, his voice cracking at the memory. ‘My sister
‘I’m disgusted anyone could stoop so low’ ‘He was so happy, he was always happy’
‘A confession doesn’t bring Joe back, does it?’
sat with him all that night. Michelle stayed with him too.’
That Sunday evening Joe’s lifesupport machine was switched off, he was then taken down to theatre so that his organs could be donated. Adrian and his family flew back to England. Between the postmortem and paperwork, they had been told it would take some time before they would be allowed bring Joe home.
On the Tuesday at 7am, Michelle got a call from the garda liaison officer asking if she could call over. ‘She was there by 7.30am and that’s when she told us he’d been hit,’ said Michelle. ‘I kind of knew already.’
‘They still don’t know what he was hit with,’ said Adrian. ‘Except that it was a blunt instrument, there was no blood or anything like that. I assume they have their suspicions but to this day they still haven’t told us what connected with his head.’
Joe’s funeral was held about a month later. It was another couple of months before the Deacy family heard anything concrete about the investigation into his murder.
Adrian Deacy says he remembers little of the details of those horrific few days before and after his son’s death. ‘I was walking around in shock, I was in denial really and I still am, to be honest,’ he said. ‘No one knew what had happened, no one had a clue and because you’re in shock, you don’t question anything.
‘We assumed, once it became a murder case, that it would be done and dusted within 24 hours. From what we believed, there wasn’t a great deal of research needed to find out who did it. When it got to 48 hours, we were thinking, what’s going on here? And now, here we are a year later...’
Last November, gardaí arrested two men in connection with Joe’s death. But they were released without charge. And in May they arrested another man but he too was later released without charge.
As far as Joe’s family and friends are aware, despite the gardaí’s best efforts, there has been no further significant movement on the investigation. ‘Two people were arrested in November, but they were released without charge,’ said Adrian. ‘Then about six weeks ago they arrested a third person, but the guards told us it wasn’t relevant to the murder part of the inquiry... And that’s the latest. As far as I know, they’ve got no hard evidence. Someone has to talk, they can’t do anything else.’
Adrian’s words echo what he said at the memorial Mass last Sunday.
‘I had to do it, you’ve got try everything,’ he said. ‘But I don’t hold out a lot of hope. If they can survive this long with that knowledge...’ he said of the perpetrator and whoever else knows what happened at the house that night.
Charging someone with Joe’s murder, for the moment, will not make things any easier for Adrian.
‘If the person who did it walked into the police station tomorrow, I wouldn’t feel one bit happier,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t bring Joe back, does it?’
For Michelle there is the added horror that this murder happened in her home town. She is also taken aback at how little local outrage she said there seems to have been.
‘They don’t talk about it,’ she said. ‘Not in front of us, anyway. That’s what it feels like and it’s wrong.’