Cocaine Wars (23 page)

After being fingered for carrying out the three murders in less than thirty-six hours, Paddy Doyle knew he was the most wanted criminal in Ireland, both by the Gardaí, and worse still, the Rattigan crew. Roche and Rattigan had been very friendly all their lives. Brian Rattigan went absolutely berserk when Roche was murdered. A bounty of €60,000 was placed on Doyle's head. For the next few weeks, Doyle travelled around the city and out of the country with his head down and in heavy disguise – often going to such extreme lengths as to dress as a woman. He seldom stayed at the same address for more than two consecutive nights. About a week after the Clontarf Road murder, Doyle went into Crumlin Garda Station and had a meeting with a senior detective. He said that he knew he was in the feud up to his neck and wanted a way out. The detective told him to admit to carrying out a crime, and he would see what could be arranged with the DPP's office. Doyle just looked at him and laughed, and said he would pass and take his chances. He did offer an insight into the way he was thinking, when he said that he thought that Freddie Thompson was a Garda informant and that he did not trust him. He always suspected the worst of people and trusted nobody but himself. When the gangs got so big and began to make so much money, the friendships were replaced by business partnerships. Friendships seemed to be fickle and money was the motivator. That Doyle would have been able to get into the back of a car with two men he considered to be friends and blow both their brains out showed this clearly. Paddy Doyle despised the Gardaí, so the fact that he was even talking to them showed just how desperate he had become. Several senior detectives said they had more time for Doyle than any other gang member, and said he had a way about him that wasn't typical of most of the feuding criminals. He was more genuine, more polite and unlike many involved in the feud. He dressed well, looked well, looked after his two kids, and for want of a better phrase, had a way about him, some might go as far as to say he had a little bit of class. However, the fact remains that he was good at what he did and was a very violent man who would shoot dead anyone who got in his way, without a moment's thought and without a shred of guilt. Several Gardaí said they were always struck by Doyle's vacant stare; he looked you in the eye, but his gaze penetrated you like you weren't even in the room.

They described him as a natural born killer, far more than Gary Bryan ever was. They thought that Bryan was a total junkie who murdered for money, but it was always business with Doyle. Doyle had all the cash he needed, and although he took the occasional line of cocaine and was a steroid abuser, he never went near heroin and was quite health conscious. He was handsome, worked out religiously, ate well and was a keen and talented boxer. When Doyle said that he wanted to get out of the crime game, the senior officer in Crumlin believed him. The detective had heard this story dozens of time before, but knew that Doyle was genuine. Unfortunately, when you get into crime as deep as Doyle did, it is very difficult to get out. He was making tens of thousands of euro some weeks – he had more cash than he knew what to do with. It was believed that he had killed three men and would have to take responsibility for his actions.

A month after Noel Roche died, Paddy Doyle had enough of the pressure at home in Ireland and decided that he would have to leave the country permanently. He boarded a flight bound for Birmingham and then intended to head for Spain. When he passed through security at Dublin Airport, he probably knew in his heart of hearts that, because of the massive price on his head, he would not be returning home any time soon.

W
AYNE
Z
AMBRA HAD
spent the night having a few pints in his local pub, Morrissey's, on Cameron Street. It was about 1.00 a.m. on 19 August 2006, and he had parked his 04 D Honda HR-V estate car just across the road from the busy boozer. He opened the door and got into the driver's seat, while one of his good friends, David Little, hopped into the front passenger seat. Zambra didn't have much time to react, but would have heard the screech of tyres, as a silver Nissan Almera pulled up alongside his Honda, and a series of shots were fired. In less than twenty seconds, the twenty-two-year-old was dead, his head slumped over the steering wheel. He had been hit a total of four times in the head and chest. David Little was struck in the leg. He was an innocent victim of the murderous feud. Though shot in the leg, Little managed to open his door and run down the street where he dialled 999. Within minutes the area was flooded with Gardaí and medical personnel. Despite the frantic efforts of an ambulance crew from nearby St James's Hospital, there was nothing that could be done for Zambra.

After bravely summoning help, Little collapsed. He was rushed to St James's in a serious condition, but would later make a full recovery. The car that was used by the murder team was found abandoned and burnt out nearby not long after the shooting, but its occupants had long since vanished into the night. It was clear that Wayne Zambra had been under surveillance in the pub and that his murder was calculated and well planned.

The murder investigation was launched at Kevin Street and the lead Garda, Detective Inspector Gabriel O'Gara, already had his hands full. He was in the middle of another murder investigation after a pensioner, Vincent Plunkett, had been knifed to death at his flat in Robinson's Court, not far from where Zambra was killed, a few days before. Indeed five people had been murdered in the country in the space of just one week, and Kevin Street Garda Station was undoubtedly one of the busiest.

Wayne Zambra was well known as one of Brian Rattigan's men. He lived on Lourdes Road in Maryland, right in the middle of Kevin Street's district. He was a familiar face to Gardaí on the beat. He was known to be involved in the distribution of drugs around the south inner city on behalf of his jailed boss. Zambra and Rattigan would not have known each other growing up, but started to become friendly after Joey Rattigan's murder, when Wayne McNally had introduced them. Zambra was driving the car in February 2003 when Brian Rattigan lost the plot and started shooting at Gardaí in Bluebell. When Zambra was questioned by Gardaí about the incident, he claimed that he did not even know that Rattigan had a firearm on him. However, he kept on driving the car away from the pursuing Gardaí and made no effort to stop. He was of sound enough mind to flee from the area and was not initially arrested. When he was detained, he did not say anything to implicate Rattigan more than he already was. Because of this, he probably earned his stripes and went up in Rattigan's estimation, thus earning him an element of trust. This trust meant that he was permitted to handle large amounts of imported cocaine and heroin for Rattigan when he was sent down over the Bluebell shooting.

Zambra was not a hardened criminal though, and Gardaí described him as slightly naïve and foolish and in way over his head in his involvement with the Rattigan gang. Zambra was a serious heroin addict, who let his need for drugs impair his judgement, so he was happy to be working for Rattigan because it meant he had regular cash in his pocket and also had access to drugs to feed his addiction. Although Zambra was a well-known face to Gardaí, like many criminals he had managed to avoid notching up too many convictions. His most serious conviction occurred after an incident on 16 May 2003, when he was arrested by Gardaí after being involved in a serious assault outside a pub on Wolfe Tone Quay. Zambra repeatedly stabbed a man, causing serious wounds to his chest, right shoulder and upper arm. He was rushed to hospital in a serious condition but subsequently recovered from his injuries. Zambra viciously assaulted his victim in a row over a woman. He was immediately detained by Gardaí. The assault was so serious that he was remanded in custody. When he appeared in court in February 2004, he pleaded guilty and was handed a thirty-month sentence. The court heard that Zambra went ‘berserk' during the incident. Because he had already been in prison for nine months, the judge suspended the remainder of his sentence and released Zambra on condition that he keep the peace for eighteen months. His solicitors argued that Zambra was a drug addict who was receiving treatment in prison. He was released on condition that he live with his parents and sign on at Kevin Street Garda Station three times per week. Aside from that run-in with the law, Zambra had minor convictions for criminal damage, unauthorised taking of a vehicle and obstructing a Garda, but he never served jail time for those offences. He had also been arrested for being drunk and disorderly and for being a passenger in a stolen car, but was never charged with either offence.

***

Wayne Zambra's murder had been the first since Noel Roche was gunned down on the Clontarf Road, the previous November, at the end of the two days of unprecedented bloodshed. A combination of good work by Gardaí involved in mediation between the two gangs and the fact that one of the main players, Paddy Doyle, was now out of the country meant that the feud had largely subsided. There had not been many serious feud incidents in the previous nine months. Two weeks after Roche's murder, Gardaí received information that Shay O'Byrne was planning a revenge hit and was intending to use a silver Volkswagen Passat as the getaway vehicle. The car was recovered at Lansdowne Valley in Drimnagh, and fourteen shotgun cartridges were found in the boot. O'Byrne wasn't arrested, and things quietened down after that until the Zambra assassination.

Gardaí initially suspected that Freddie Thompson's gang had shot Zambra dead, and that theory made perfect sense. He was a low-to-middle-ranking member of the Rattigan gang and was moving a fair amount of drugs around the Dublin 8 area, which is lucrative turf. Taking him out would be fairly easy because he lived with his parents in Maryland and was pretty much a sitting duck. However, Gardaí explored every possible avenue, and came up against dead ends in trying to tie Freddie's crew to the murder. In the weeks after the murder, it became obvious that Zambra was probably murdered by his own gang after an internal row. Before he was shot dead, rumours began to circulate that Zambra had been dipping into drugs that he was meant to be dealing, and that profits were down as a result. If he was using Rattigan's drugs, then he was leaving himself wide open to suffering severe consequences. Although Rattigan and the other members trusted him to a degree, this trust was limited, and once he started getting in the way of making money, there was only one way Zambra was going to end up – dead.

In confusing times Gardaí usually go to their trusted informants who give them the off-the-record low-down on what actually happened but there was one problem – Wayne Zambra was their main informant. Several sources interviewed, as part of the research for this book, have said that Zambra was providing information about rivals, and also members of his own gang, to several Garda detectives. These detectives provided him with a degree of shelter. In return the Gardaí got valuable information about the activities of senior drug dealers who would then be targeted. If members of Brian Rattigan's gang even suspected that Zambra was a rat it would be an automatic bullet for him – perhaps they had found out. Maybe Brian Rattigan and Wayne McNally began to wonder why they had both been charged over the Bluebell shooting incident, but Zambra had got off scot-free. Perhaps he had given a statement implicating them under the agreement that he would get a free pass. Nothing could be ruled out by detectives. Thirty-two people were arrested as part of this investigation – Wayne McNally was the most high-profile – but nobody was pointing the finger in the direction of the Thompson gang.

Detectives began to draw up a list of possible suspects outside of Freddie's crew, but none of the names that were mentioned made any sense. They looked back at the feud murders from the previous four years and the manner of the murder – the fact that the killing was so precise and took place in a busy area with potential witnesses, led one Garda to mention offhand that it reminded him of the work of Gary Bryan.

***

Gary Bryan, to the best of everyone's knowledge, was still behind bars, after being sentenced to a three-year jail term in April 2004 for the possession of €10,000 worth of heroin. To satisfy themselves, Gardaí checked with the prison authorities, who informed them that he had actually been released on 20 July, just one month earlier. The final year of his sentence had been suspended, so Bryan was set free. It was a significant moment. Gardaí knew that Bryan was a professional killer and had been hired by the Rattigan gang to take out Paul Warren at Gray's pub in February 2004. What was to say that they hadn't hired him again to take care of some internal housekeeping?

Bryan was comfortable in jail and used his frequent sentences to wean himself off heroin. In the course of his adult life he served seventeen separate jail sentences. These sentences included seven months for four counts of car theft, ten months for drink-driving, three years for the possession of a firearm, three years for criminal damage, four years for aggravated burglary and three years for false imprisonment. When he walked out of Mountjoy Prison, he was twenty-nine years old and determined to lead a straight life. Although Valerie White had told Gardaí that she was finished with him after the Paul Warren murder, the couple had never really broken up and were as devoted to each other as ever. She visited him twice each week in Mountjoy, and was waiting for him outside the prison gates when he was released. Then they went straight back to their new flat on the Lower Kimmage Road. For all of Bryan's undoubted faults, she had decided to stand by her man, and their new flat was meant to signal a new beginning – away from crime, drugs and all the other negative temptations in his life. The new start lasted just a couple of days. Bryan struggled to adjust to life as a free man and started abusing heroin again. He also met up with his old associate Shay O'Byrne, and made it clear that he was available for work, should he be needed. With a heroin problem that was costing him a couple of hundred euro a day, he certainly needed the cash. So, he started selling drugs again, but this time he was being supplied by the Rattigan gang. He started to make a lot of cash and would regularly have thousands of euro in his possession. He started to go on week-long drugs benders. It was in the early days of September that Gary Bryan was first nominated as a suspect in Wayne Zambra's murder. Detectives were in the process of trying to build up a case against him. They knew that they faced a difficult task, because there was no actual physical evidence to link him to the murder. Nevertheless, once officers had started to put his name to confidential informants, the word that came back was that Bryan was being fingered as the triggerman in the murder on the street as well.

This encouraged Gardaí and they thought that, although Valerie White had let them down at the eleventh hour before, when she withdrew her statement, if her boyfriend was back to his old tricks and she knew about it, she might be willing to give him up again. Preliminary investigations had determined that Bryan had left his flat the night before the Zambra murder. He said he would be back in an hour, but had not returned for four days. This led them to believe that he had kept his head down in a safe house after carrying out the murder. However, before they could try to get a statement from White or get enough evidence to question Bryan, fate intervened and ensured that the Zambra murder will almost certainly be classed as ‘unsolved' forever.

On 26 September 2006, just after 5.00 p.m., Bryan and Valerie White left their flat and drove towards Crumlin with the intention of calling in to see Valerie's mother, Margaret. They had spent the early afternoon shopping in town and planned to relax for the evening after visiting Margaret White. On the way to Crumlin, they took a detour to the McDonald's drive-thru on the Long Mile Road. Bryan was driving a blue Nissan Micra, registration 94 D 5139. At 5.45 p.m. he parked outside the ABC newsagents on Bunting Road in Crumlin to pick up a packet of cigarettes. A few minutes later, he got back into the car with Valerie and drove 500 yards to Margaret White's home on Bunting Road on the Crumlin/ Walkinstown border. He parked the Micra directly outside the house, with the front of the car facing towards Crumlin village.

The pair went into the White family home. They spent about ten minutes chatting to Margaret and to Valerie's sister, Linda White, along with her two young sons. At 6.00 p.m., Bryan went outside to fit two new car seat covers on his Micra. Valerie followed him out and spoke to him while he worked on the car. Five or ten minutes later, Bryan looked up and saw a metallic-blue Volkswagen Golf driving slowly past the house. He recognised the driver and said: ‘There's a fella that's going to make a phone call. I have to get out of here.' Valerie asked him who he was talking about. He said Graham Whelan was the man driving the car, and that he wasn't safe and needed to leave.

Graham Whelan had been released from Wheatfield Prison on 19 June 2006, after serving nearly all of a six-year stretch. He had been sentenced for possession and intent to supply. Back in March 2000, he was caught in the Holiday Inn with Declan Gavin and Philip Griffiths with a drugs haul worth a €1.7 million. Although Whelan had served a hefty sentence and Declan Gavin had got off, Whelan did not join the Brian Rattigan side in the dispute. He remained loyal to ‘Fat' Freddie Thompson and spent a lot of time with him.

Gary Bryan saw Whelan drive off in the direction of Crumlin village. Valerie told him not to be so paranoid, and went into the house to make him a cup of coffee, and said they would head off after that. Gary took the coffee and continued to work on the car. He was lying on the front passenger seat with the door open, while Valerie was inside the house with her mother and sister. At around 6.35 p.m., a man armed with a handgun walked up to Bryan and shot him three times in the back while Bryan was attempting to get out of the Micra. Bryan ran across Bunting Road towards Bunting Park, pursued by his assassin. As he slumped and fell to the footpath, the man leaned over him and fired three more shots to his head from close range, instantly killing him.