FAMILY’S GRIEF AS A SECOND SON MURDERED
Patrick Ward (30) meets violent death in alley 11 years after his brother’s murder
A Sligo family has been left heartbroken following the murder of a young man in an alleyway in County Tyrone.
Patrick Ward (30), a son of Tom and Bridget Ward, originally from Joe McDonnell Drive in Cranmore was found dead around 8.15am last Saturday morning at McCrea Park in Clogher. It is understood Mr Ward, a married father of four, had been stabbed.
The PSNI has launched a murder investigation and a 23-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman are being questioned on suspicion of murder and remain in police custody.
Patrick’s brother, Tom junior was murdered outside the family home in Cranmore in 2007.
THE brutal murder of Patrick Ward last Saturday in an alley in a county Tyrone housing estate is the second tragedy to hit the Ward family.
In August 2007, father of one, Tom Ward junior (23) was attacked and killed outside his then parents’ home at Joe McDonnell Drive in Cranmore.
It is understood Mr Ward received catastrophic head injuries when attacked with a hatchet by up to four men who had waited for him.
Mr Ward attempted to make it into his parents’ home but his assailants overpowered him and delivered a fatal blow to his head.
One of 13 children, he lived just a short distance from his parents’ house.
It was a journey which Tom Ward junior made several times a day - a short trip from his own house at Cranmore Drive to his parents home.
At 1.15 am. four balaclava clad men were waiting for him as he pulled up in his Ford Transit van.
Two other men who were in the front garden of the Ward’s house made it safely inside.
Mr. Ward was removed to hospital where he was pronounced dead at 6.10 a.m.
The killers escaped in a car which struck a wall as it re- versed out of the narrow road. Like his brother, Patrick, Tom junior was also a keen boxer.
The murder of Tom Ward junior shocked the town.
His wife, Cliona, later gave birth at the end of February 2008 to the couple’s second child, Tom Paul, named after his father.
While there had been several arrests in the months after the murder no one has ever been charged with the murder.