The 2020 death of Leitrim man Liam Farrell was officially found to have been the result of a heart attack. His family believe otherwise. They are demanding that it be reinvestigated, believing he was attacked and robbed at his home late on a January night.
Prime Time's Fran McNulty has been investigating what is known about the final hours of Liam Farrell and speaking to relatives of the beloved farmer from the village of Rooskey.
"He was a pure gentleman. He hadn’t an enemy in the world, and I can’t believe what happened to him," 90-year-old Mel Farrell tells Prime Time, with tear-filled eyes, as he talks about his late brother Liam.
It is the first time he has spoken publicly about the tragic death of his younger brother.
Mel recalls attending a funeral with Liam shortly before his death, as he speaks to us, he pauses, smiling to conceal his emotion, and says "I never seen him after that. Never. He was waving at me going off, I can see him yet".
87-year-old farmer, Liam, was found dead on his doorstep in January 2020 in Rooskey, Co Leitrim. His bruised, lifeless, body lay in the open air on a cold winter's day. His shoes and socks were off, his jacket rolled up and tucked alongside him, blood running down his face. There were injuries to his hands, feet, and legs.
"Carnage" is how Brendan, Liam’s son, described the scene.
"You didn't have to be an expert to know that poor Daddy was attacked," he told Prime Time.
There was blood on the back door, on the walls, Liam’s broken watch lay on the ground, his wallet was missing. There were blood-soaked rags, shards of timber covered in blood, and a mop bucket and mop covered in blood in the middle of the scene.
The trauma of the discovery is etched on Brendan’s face as he recalls the day they saw his father’s body outside the back door.
"Even though it was Daddy, I didn't recognise him, and that was the first thing that hit me," he said. "I didn't recognise this is... Daddy. This is my father. There was blood, there was cuts, there was all wounds on his hands. They were all black. Daddy was covered in blood. The walls were covered in blood. It was carnage."
A quest for answers
There are many strange things about the death of Liam Farrell.
A hat seen near the body by an emergency responder would disappear. Liam Farrell wasn’t wearing a hat the night he was last seen alive. The family say they saw footsteps across the front lawn before emergency services arrived, yet a garda later said they were his.
These are not the only things that concern the family, who have formed the view that their father did not die alone.
Post-mortem examinations
When gardaí arrived at the house, it was they sealed it off, a cordon was put up, and a forensic team came in to gather evidence and photograph the scene. Liam’s body was taken to Sligo General Hospital for a post-mortem examination. That examination would conclude Liam died from a heart attack.
The next day the family was informed of the cause of death. Shortly after, the garda cordon was lifted and the house returned to the family.
"The house was reopened and obviously we cleaned up. We cleaned up the walls, we cleaned up the door, there was blood on the walls and door," says Peter, Liam’s son.
Despite the obvious shock, instinctively Brendan felt something wasn’t right.
"I could understand, yes, a heart attack, but what about the injuries? And what caused the heart attack? What led to that?"
What the family did not know at this point was that their father's post-mortem examination was not a forensic one. It was a routine post-mortem, to determine cause of death.
The pathologist who conducted the autopsy would later say that he was not informed by gardaí that the body had been taken from a scene which was suspicious, sealed off, and undergoing examination.
He would tell an inquest that had he known that the death was suspicious, he would have refused to conduct the examination and insisted a forensic pathologist be drafted in to conduct more detailed evidence-gathering.
Without that knowledge, his function was to simply determine the cause of death, which he did.
"Things went wrong from the moment when there was, for some unknown reason, a lack of communication between the scenes of crime guards or the senior guards who attended the scene," Frank Buttimer, a solicitor representing the Farrells, told Prime Time.
"It was literally an opportunity that was missed to carry out a more comprehensive post-mortem assessment of the remains, which would have established the presence of injuries and which would have established a likely causal connection between those injuries and a likely assault."
That initial post-mortem was later reviewed by State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan, who said that the "pattern of injuries on the face and hands" raised some concerns and that the bruises on Liam Farrell’s hands and fingers may be defence injuries.
She outlined two possible scenarios. In one, Liam Farrell experienced a heart attack during which he fell and injured himself. In the other, the injuries were sustained as a result of an assault.
Dr Mulligan told Mr Farrell’s inquest that, on balance, her office favoured the first scenario. But her report noted "the involvement of another party cannot be ruled out based on the original autopsy report and the photographs provided".
Struggling to get answers, the family sought other expert opinions. They asked a former State Pathologist for Northern Ireland to review the file.
Professor Jack Crane’s opinion is definite, he says that Liam Farrell was "confronted by an intruder outside his home" and had "clearly been assaulted by being struck a number of times on the face, possibly causing him to fall to the ground".
Prof Crane’s report states "it would appear that he has attempted to make his way back into his home, but had eventually succumbed to the effects of his coronary artery disease, exacerbated by the strain of the physical assault".
Rumours and theories
The members of the Farrell family Prime Time spoke to feel strongly that their father was attacked and robbed. His missing wallet is an indication of that, they say.
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They are aware a rumour had been circulating that he had received a large inheritance from a relative.
"My father had a cousin who died, elderly," Liam’s son Peter said. "He got €2m for three acres of land. He died shortly after. My father and his brother were the only two heirs. So, everybody thought they got a million a piece."
That was not even close to true, he said. It’s just one of several concerning pieces of information they have learned in their quest for answers in recent years.
Two other people made different claims which have played on the minds of the family. One person told them that their father did not die where he was found, that he was dragged there.
Another said he saw a car outside Liam Farrell’s house on the night he died.
Gardaí have investigated these claims. The people alleged to have made the claims would not speak to Prime Time.
The family even commissioned a private forensic company to conduct forensic testing in the shed at the back of Liam’s house, due to concerns he may have been tied up and attacked there.
Prime Time has seen the report. It finds there were traces of blood on the ground under a rope, which the family think was used to tie up Liam.
A subsequent garda investigation of the shed was inconclusive, finding no definitive trace of blood.
With rumours and concerns circulating, a lack of answers, and growing questions haunt the Farrells. Gardaí say they have fully investigated the case, albeit not to the satisfaction of the family.
A file was sent to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but no prosecution was directed.
After a request from the Farrells, then Garda Commissioner Drew Harris directed that a peer review of the case be carried out.
In a statement to Prime Time, An Garda Síochána said that recommendations from the review are being "actioned." Yet the details of those recommendations are unclear.
The statement continued that "a peer review is not a re-opening or a re-start of any criminal investigation".
All this has led the family to question what exactly is happening with the case. Their concern is that the case is closed now, something which their solicitor Frank Buttimer says would be "a very sad state of affairs".
"If that's the case, that this elderly gentleman - who was a very, very well-regarded man in the community, who then seems to have met his death in questionable criminal circumstances - will end up in a situation where no answer is available to explain what happened to him, that would be a very, very distressing state of affairs for the family."
The family want a full reinvestigation to be conducted. For Liam’s brother Mel, time is of the essence.
"I’m 90 and I want to see him get the truth before I die. It would mean a lot to me to know before I die."
"Someone is holding back something, I think. I do," he added.
"I think someone knows something and they won’t say it. They know, but they’re frightened of saying it."
Fran McNulty and Lucinda Glynn's report examining the death of Liam Farrell and his family's call for a reinvestigation is broadcast on the 11 September edition of Prime Time at 9.35pm on RTÉ One television.
