A 46-year-old woman has been found guilty of the murders of two men who were shot dead and whose bodies were found on an island in a midlands lake 11 years ago.
Ruth Lawrence, who is originally from Clontarf in Dublin but with an address at Patricks Cottage, Ross, Mountnugent in Co Meath, had denied murdering 33-year-old Anthony Keegan and 32-year-old Eoin O'Connor between 22 April and 26 May 2014.
The jury returned majority verdicts of 10:2 and 11:1 after deliberating for almost 14 hours since Thursday last.
Members of the victims' families broke down in tears as the verdicts were delivered.
Ruth Lawrence will be sentenced on 8 December when she faces the mandatory sentence of life in prison.
The bodies of the two men were discovered on Inchicup Island on Lough Sheelin, which straddles the borders of Meath, Westmeath and Cavan, five weeks after they went missing.
Eoin O'Connor was a drug dealer in Dublin. The trial heard that drugs had been stolen from him six days before his murder and that he had sold drugs to Lawrence’s South African boyfriend Neville van der Westhuizen, who owed him €70,000.
The couple lived in St Patrick’s cottage on the Westmeath side of Lough Sheelin, near the shoreline which was approximately 100 metres from the island.
The prosecution said Ruth Lawrence shot Eoin O'Connor in the stomach but the shot was not fatal and was quickly followed up by a shot to the head by her boyfriend.
Prosecuting counsel Michael O'Higgins said that Lawrence shot the 32-year-old in the stomach intending to kill him and that Mr O'Connor may have "grappled" with her boyfriend before he "finished him off".
Anthony Keegan, who arrived with Mr O'Connor, was shot in the neck and head.
The prosecution said both men were shot in a field near Patrick's Cottage and that the bodies were moved to the island later that night.
Michael O’Higgins said the last call between Eoin O'Connor and Neville van der Westhuizen was around 7.10pm on 22 April and indicated there must have been a specific meeting point mentioned in that call.
He told the jury it was unclear whether the couple were aware that Mr Keegan was going to be with Mr O'Connor "but whether or not they were aware, a plan was fine-tuned, and he was murdered too".
In his closing arguments, Mr O'Higgins said the couple acted as "a unit and a tag team" to lure the drug dealer to their home and murder him in a "highly calculated crime".
He reminded the jury how Ruth Lawrence had asked her landlord for the loan of a boat the night before the men went missing.
"Is it a coincidence of a Monday night before two men are shot dead and their bodies put on Inchicup Island, that a boat is being sought?" he said.
'Little black gun'
The trial also heard evidence from witness Stacey Symes that Ruth Lawrence had shot Eoin O'Connor "but it went wrong" so her boyfriend Neville "took over".
She said she remembered that Lawrence thought it was funny that "the other fella", Anthony Keegan, said he would die for Eoin O’Connor because "they were friends".
She also testified that she and her father Jason, who were described in court as "low level drug dealers" were asked to help move the bodies of the two murdered men.
Jason Symes told the jury that he was "terrified" of Lawrence, who he said carried around "a little black gun" and would put it down the back of her trousers. Both father and daughter, Jason and Stacey Symes, are in the Witness Security Programme.
However, defence counsel said that Symes’ had painted themselves as "innocents abroad" who had downplayed their own roles and could not be trusted to convict Ruth Lawrence of murdering the two men.
Senior Counsel Patrick Gageby told the jury "they played the system and they tried to play you" and described their evidence as unreliable.
He acknowledged that Neville van der Westhuizen was doing some drug dealing but submitted that there was no evidence Lawrence was "part and parcel of that".
He also said it was highly unlikely that Lawrence had openly admitted killing someone.
Detective Sergeant Kevin O'Brien told the trial that the couple left Ireland after the murders and went to South Africa.
He said Ireland issued an arrest warrant for Mr van der Westhuizen who is currently serving a 15-year sentence in South Africa, having been convicted in 2020 on six counts of kidnapping, attempted murder and murder.
The court heard the application to extradite Mr van der Westhuizen to Ireland is adjourned until his sentence in South Africa is complete, which might be in 2035, and if he is given parole in the meantime then the extradition case may become live again.
