According to now convicted murderer Kieran Greene, there was 'blood everywhere’ when he attacked Patricia O’Connor with a hurley.
It was 29 May 2017, and as people enjoyed a summer’s evening in south Dublin, one house at Mountainviewpark in Rathfarnham was bearing witness to murder. Up until that evening nine people were living in the four-bed property, and as the recent trial heard, there were tensions due to the crowded living conditions. Patricia and her husband Gus slept in separate bedrooms. Their daughter Louise also lived at the property along with her five children, and her partner of ten years – Kieran Greene.
The evidence at the recently concluded murder trial was that Patricia O’Connor received at least three separate blows to her head. Such was the ferocity of one of the blows, she would have died quickly from blunt force trauma. Greene later told detectives he used bleach and hot water to clean up blood in the bathroom. He said he had moved the body of his mother-in-law upstairs to her own bedroom where he left her lying for some time on the floor. He said he cleaned up the bedroom in the same manner he’d cleaned the downstairs bathroom. A full forensic examination was conducted at the house, and very little evidence was found of a forensic value. Kieran Greene’s forensic clean-up was very thorough. And we have to work on the basis that he acted alone in the clean-up. Based on the recent jury verdicts we can state that Patricia’s daughter Louise and her grand-daughter Stephanie were both aware later that night that Patricia had been killed, and somehow between them they concocted a plan to disguise Stephanie as her grandmother and pretend she was still alive, having ‘stormed out of the house’. But that’s all we can state about Louise and Stephanie’s culpability. When it comes to the forensic clean-up in the house we only have Kieran Greene’s statements to Gardaí and he says he cleaned up the scene himself.
I’ve been reflecting on the different accounts that Kieran Greene gave to detectives. He gave two different versions of what happened. In June 2017 he confessed what he had done, and did not implicate anyone else. In December 2017, while in Cloverhill Prison and charged with murder, he blamed Patricia’s husband Gus for attacking Patricia. Ultimately the jury did not believe the December 2017 account which sought to blame Gus - they instead believed the June confession, and the compelling fact that it was Greene who had brought Gardaí to the field in Co. Wexford where he had buried Patricia’s body and had dismembered her.
What Gus O’Connor is guilty of is reporting his wife missing while knowing or believing she was already dead. He pleaded guilty in mid January, just before he was due to go on trial with the four other accused. He is the only one who has accepted any culpability in the case, and his guilty plea will be a factor that sentencing judge, Mr. Justice Paul McDermott will take into account when he sentences the five guilty people on 20 April next. Gus O’Connor did not give evidence in the recent trial, and it will be in April when, for the first time, we may hear some evidence of the context to the crime that Gus O’Connor admits - that he impeded the investigation. And there are many questions - why did he do it, when did he first know his wife was dead and that Kieran Greene had murdered her? How could he go to Gardaí along with his son Richard and report Patricia missing, knowing she was dead?
We know that there were huge tensions in the house in 2017. Nine people were living in a four bedroom home. Patricia and Gus slept in separate bedrooms, leaving seven others to share the other space. We know there is no evidence of a plan prior to the murder, but what is now clear, based on the jury verdicts, is that there was certainly a plot or plots thereafter to cover up the crime. How could some members of three generations of a family - Patricia’s husband, daughter, and a grand-daughter - find themselves covering up a crime rather than reporting it?
The five convictions now delivered against five people are crimes that are snapshots in time. Kieran Greene murdered his mother-in-law on 29 May 2017. Louise and Stephanie committed an act designed to impede the investigation that same night. Gus O’Connor then impeded the investigation days later by reporting his wife as a ‘missing’ person, and Keith Johnston - Louise’s former partner - then entered the criminal frame on 9 June 2017 by helping Kieran Greene to buy axes and hacksaws knowing or believing they were to be used in the further concealment of Patricia’s body. Crimes committed on certain dates at certain times, but they don’t tell the full story. What is still unclear is what discussions were had and by whom amongst the five guilty people between the time Kieran Greene committed murder and the time he travelled down to Wexford two weeks later and disinterred his mother-in-law’s body and dismembered her?
The field in Co. Wexford holds another important part of the puzzle that we may perhaps never actually get to the bottom of. It is in this field that Kieran Greene says he dismembered Patricia’s body, using hacksaws and axes bought hours earlier in DIY shops in Tallaght with Keith Johnston’s assistance. But when a forensic examination was later conducted at the shallow grave where he hid Patricia’s body, only a single hair was found in the soil. There was no other forensic trace to be found. The dismemberment process would likely have been a lengthy and chaotic process. Forensic experts examining the field in Co. Wexford might have expected to find traces of the gruesome and despicable act just days after it had occurred, but they didn’t.
I recently visited Rathfarnham Garda station and stood in the public area where Kieran Greene came on the evening of 12 June 2017. This is where he sat waiting to speak to a Garda in charge, and began confessing he’d murdered his mother-in-law. If it wasn’t for Greene’s confession, and voluntary travel to Co. Wexford to point out where he’d temporarily buried his mother-in-law’s body, the crime might not have been detected so quickly. While of course, DNA tests on the 15 body parts found in the Wicklow mountains would have eventually identified the victim as ‘missing’ woman Patricia O’Connor, it would have been much more difficult to establish where she’d been killed (remember Greene had cleaned up the murder scene in the bathroom) or where the body had been dismembered (it was Greene who told Gardai he’d done it in the field in Co. Wexford). And it was Kieran Greene who pointed detectives where to find the tools he’d used to dismember Patricia O’Connor. It was six months after he was charged with murder that he told Gardai that the axes and hacksaws could be found hidden in undergrowth at a location along the river Dodder in Dublin. A forensic examination of the weapons found a human hair attached to one - similar to the hair found in the shallow grave in Wexford, testing of the hair on the hacksaw later provided ‘moderate support’ that this hair was Patricia O’Connor’s.
What is intriguing is the contrast between Kieran Greene’s actions before and after he walked into the Garda station to confess. Before he walked in that evening two weeks after the murder, he had forensically cleaned the murder scene. He had dug a shallow grave with his bare hands and temporarily buried his mother-in-law’s body. He then dismembered the body and dispersed body parts over a thirty kilometre section of road in Co. Wicklow. All acts designed to hugely frustrate any Garda investigation. But then, within hours of dismembering the body, he walks into a Garda station and confesses and then gives considerable assistance to the Garda investigation. It is a remarkable change in attitude.
In the opening weeks of the recent murder trial I observed Richard O’Connor sitting by himself outside the courtroom. He had no choice - a defence application was made that because Patricia’s son was a prosecution witness, he should remain outside the court until he was called to give evidence. Such a request is routinely done, and is in the interest of justice, but it must have been difficult for Richard to be outside the courtroom all that time. He attended every day of the trial with his wife Martina. The courtroom was packed every day, with other family also attending. A number of Patricia’s sisters also attended court. They travelled by train from Co.Kilkenny and over the course of the six week trial developed a pattern of heading to and from the court via Heuston station. None of Patricia’s sisters gave evidence in the case, but they were there to honour their sister’s memory and provide solace and support to Richard. They knew and know what Patricia O’Connor was like, the type of woman she was, the hearty laugh, the chatty nature, the craic she’d have, the good work ethic, the good mother and grandmother she was.
Patricia was originally from Windgap in Co. Kilkenny. But she ended up in Dublin and spent most of her life in the capital. Her sister Rita has given RTÉ Prime Time an interview which will be shown tonight as part of our special report on the case. Myself and producer John Cunningham were struck by the love which drove Rita to speak publicly about her sister. Rita wants the general public to know about the good woman her sister was. Yes, we will forever know her as the woman who suffered barbarity in the manner of her death and the concealment of her body. But she lived for 61 years, and she lived a full life, and she left good memories for those who loved her.
Rita and other siblings will return to court on 20 April next, as will Richard and Martina. Also walking in the front door of the court that day will be Gus O’Connor and his daughter Louise and his grand-daughter Stephanie. Gus, Louise and Stephanie, along with Keith Johnston remain on bail pending sentence. They face a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment for impeding the investigation, or a minimum of a suspended sentence. Kieran Greene meanwhile faces the only sentence available for a convicted murderer. He will be jailed for life, and is in custody awaiting the formal imposition of that sentence. Hopefully on 20 April the court, Patricia’s loved ones, and wider society will be told more by one or more of those now convicted as to why they did what they did in the summer of 2017.
Watch the special report on the investigation into the murder of Patricia O’Connor, on Prime Time tonight at 10:35pm.
