Cocaine Wars (29 page)

At 9.15 p.m. a local resident was parking his car, when he stumbled upon the lifeless body. Gardaí described the beating that Eddie McCabe suffered as the worst they have ever seen. The torture that was inflicted on him was as needless as it was savage. One of his eyes was gouged out and was found beside his body. His second eye was loosely hanging from its socket. A sewer rod had been jammed into the back of his head and pushed through his skull in an attempt to push his eyes out. He had received multiple injuries to the back of the head and suffered seventeen fractures to the skull. It was an act of sustained and savage torture that was inflicted to send out a message. When Gardaí arrived at the scene, the person lying injured on the ground had no identification. He was rushed to St James's Hospital and was put on a life support machine, but with the extent of his injuries, it didn't look good.

The following day an officer who arrived at the hospital saw the tattoo on Eddie's arm – a cross with his father's name on it – and recognised the victim as being young McCabe. Gardaí called to Linda's house and asked if Eddie was there. She immediately broke down screaming and shouting that she didn't want to know what had happened. It was almost a carbon copy of the call that Gardaí made enquiring about her husband nearly twelve years previously. Her mother's instinct told her that something terrible had happened to Eddie. She locked herself in the bathroom and began banging her head on the wall with the grief. When she recovered, she was asked to go to St James's to see if the victim was indeed Eddie. She went with her sister, and immediately knew that it was her son lying in a vegetative state. A large bandage went around his head, covering what once had been his eyes and hiding the shocking injuries to the back of his head. His face had no cuts or bruises, and apart from the bandages, Eddie was as handsome as ever. Doctors told a heartbroken Linda that the prognosis was not good. If Eddie did survive, he would be blind in both eyes and would suffer the effects of severe brain damage, such had been the ferocity of the torture.

Six months before Eddie died, Linda McCabe became a born again Christian. She worshipped at a church in Gardiner Street. She had put herself through college and was volunteering in the Drimnagh community. Were it not for her faith, she would never have survived the ordeal of losing a second loved one. Even with her strong faith in God, Linda found it very difficult and could not easily visit her gravely ill son. Members of her church used to drive her to the hospital every night, where she would sing ‘You Are My Sunshine' to Eddie. Linda knew in her heart of hearts that Eddie would not want to live without being able to see his beautiful son, and knew deep down that he would prefer to die than not be able to live a full and independent life. On 8 December, his brother George was in the hospital ward and was holding Eddie's hand when he felt a squeeze. George rushed to the doctor, who told Eddie that if he could hear them, he should squeeze George's hand. With that he squeezed, and did the same thing to a nurse who also went to examine him. It was clear Eddie had feeling in the right side of his body and his family were initially ecstatic. However, the faint trace of life just reinforced in Linda's mind how unfulfilling a life Eddie would lead if he recovered. The chances of a full recovery were very slim indeed. Linda did what no mother ever should have to do. She leaned into her son and whispered into his ear, telling him what had happened and the extent of the injuries he had suffered. She told him that if he wanted to pass on, not to be afraid to do it. She prayed to the Lord to take her son from his living nightmare and end his pain. Six hours after whispering in Eddie's ear, neurological experts from Beaumont Hospital examined him and declared that he was brain dead. It was almost as if Eddie was waiting for his mother to tell him that everything would be OK, and that he would soon be back with his father forever. Either way, after a lengthy discussion, his family decided that they should turn the life support machine off. Linda didn't go back into the room after telling Eddie that it was OK to die and that God would look after him now. She couldn't bear to say a final goodbye to her son. She wanted her last memories of him to be happy ones, memories of him with his own son, not in the terrible state that he now found himself in.

Doctors turned the machines that had been keeping him alive off and after fifteen minutes his heart stopped naturally, and Eddie died peacefully in his sleep. The following day was the McCabe twins' eighteenth birthday party. Eddie had donated €50 to his brothers, George and Wayne, to put towards renting a stretched Hummer, so they could celebrate in style. The party never went ahead. In many ways a large part of Eddie McCabe died the day that his father was murdered. Although he was still alive, it was almost as if he was in a living coma and never really lived in the real world after his dad was taken from him. In many ways the person who murdered Eddie McCabe Snr and Catherine Brennan also killed a third person that night.

Because of the injuries to his face and head area, it was impossible for the McCabe family to have an open coffin so that his many friends could say goodbye to Eddie. The funeral took place at Our Lady of Good Counsel church in Drimnagh. Eddie was a massive fan of folk music, Christy Moore in particular, and loved ‘The Lonesome Boatman' by the Furey Brothers. One of the people at Linda's church was a talented flautist, and touched the crowd with a moving rendition of the much loved song. It was a fitting tribute to send Eddie to his final resting place. Eddie had previously told his mother that if he died he wanted the song played at his funeral. He had first heard it at his father's funeral and had grown to love the song and took great comfort from its haunting melody. Linda had ‘You'll Never Walk Alone' played at communion during the funeral. It was as a reminder to herself and Eddie's friends and family that they would always have each other and be there to support each other.

Linda McCabe is a brave and courageous woman who has somehow managed to go on despite all the pain she has suffered in her life. She is now preoccupied with helping others and trying to save a community that has been torn apart by the Rattigan and Thompson feud. She is the first to admit that she is not a rich woman. She had a dream about having a horse and carriage to transport Eddie's remains. When she woke up, she decided that that was what she must do. The funeral was an expensive one, and her loyal family chipped in, but there were still bills to be paid. The story of Linda and her double loss spread around the Christian community. People were asked to pray for her and her family and keep them in their thoughts. Out of the blue, a strange thing started to happen. Unsolicited cheques from around the world started to arrive at her church and were passed on to Linda. People from as far away as France, the US and the Netherlands were all touched by her story, and started to send her money to help with the burial costs: over €3,000 was donated to Linda and every cent went to pay for Eddie's funeral expenses. Although she had lost her first son in the most horrible way imaginable, these gestures of kindness reminded Linda that there was still good in the world.

The murder investigation was launched at Kilmainham Garda Station, and, as with so many other feud-related murders, it fell to Detective Inspector Gabriel O'Gara to take care of the day-to-day running of the investigation. Superintendent Thady Muldoon, who was in overall charge of the murder probe, issued an appeal to the public for help in solving the murder. He said the victim had suffered ‘a severe and brutal assault' and said his injuries had been ‘absolutely horrendous', before adding: ‘He would appear from our investigations to have been dumped in that laneway. There are people who have information; we are fully aware of that. There are people who know what happened to Eddie, and we are appealing to them to come forward.'

Superintendent Muldoon didn't want to add fuel to the media fire about the extent of the injuries or what weapons were used, saying: ‘At the moment we don't know what implements or weapons were used. We assume there may have been more than one person involved, but that's something that will become clear as the enquiry moves on. At this stage our investigators are following several lines of inquiry but we wouldn't be able to say yet what contributed to this.' He did confirm that McCabe had completely lost the sight in one eye and that the other had been seriously damaged, but didn't want to go into too much detail.

Gardaí believe they know the identity of Eddie McCabe's killer. There is little doubt that more than one person was involved, but the actual torture is thought to have been inflicted by one of Brian Rattigan's top men, who cannot be named for legal reasons. He is regarded as being a total psychopath who takes great pleasure in inflicting pain on others, and would have thought nothing of pushing McCabe's eyes out of his head and mutilating him. It is not known whether McCabe went to meet his killers and a row developed, or if the sadistic beating was inflicted as a warning or act of revenge. Gardaí did receive one promising lead. An informant told them that McCabe might have been tortured in an empty house in Drimnagh before being dumped in the laneway. The council owned the premises and the tenants had only just moved out, so it was empty while the new tenants were preparing to move in. A Garda forensics team combed the building and removed floorboards from each room, in an attempt to find the remnants of blood, but the search drew a blank. Information received by Gardaí has suggested that Eddie went into the house thinking he would be safe, but that the Rattigan gang member was hiding in a wardrobe, then came out suddenly and attacked the unsuspecting McCabe, knocking him to the ground before commencing with the terrible torture. The extent of Brian Rattigan's involvement in the murder is unclear. Eddie McCabe served time with Brian Rattigan in Mountjoy but was never really known to associate with him all that much, although he would have been friendlier with other members of the gang. Rattigan does not have a history of ordering murders to be carried out in such a brutal and heinous fashion; murders that were linked to him usually went the traditional route – a gun to the back of the head. Media reports at the time claimed that a ‘jailed crime boss' had ordered that McCabe's eyes be taken out of their sockets and that the assault be filmed on a mobile phone, but there is no hard evidence of this. One newspaper quoted a ‘Garda source' as saying: ‘McCabe was tortured in the most horrific way just hours after the gangster issued the order. The ganglord allegedly told his henchmen, ‘I want his eyes. I want you to take them out of his head and film it.' The plan was to circulate the footage to other criminals in the city as a warning.' The ‘ganglord' referred to was Brian Rattigan, but he couldn't be named because he had been charged with Declan Gavin's murder and was awaiting trial. Gardaí do not know if Rattigan had ordered the murder to be filmed, but what is clear is that members of his gang would not have been able to go around murdering people without their boss's knowledge and permission, so it can be assumed that Rattigan was aware of the plot to kill McCabe and had given it his blessing. Gardaí know who murdered Eddie McCabe but they are still uncertain about the motive. They know that Eddie was not involved in gang activity, but it has been speculated that he may have become involved in running small amounts of drugs for the gang to earn some money for his new son and might have been blamed for some product going missing. Detectives simply do not know, and the case is still very much open. The brutal injuries inflicted to McCabe's eyes might be symbolic. Some officers believe that the torture could mean that he saw something that he shouldn't have, or that he saw something and went to Gardaí with the information. McCabe was no rat though, and it is possible that his murder was connected to the prison stabbing and beating he received, although it is almost unprecedented for jailhouse disputes to continue like that on the streets, especially over a mobile phone, which at the time would have been easily available in Mountjoy. Gardaí say that they will keep trying to find Eddie McCabe's killers. All investigating officers are united in saying that Eddie did not deserve it, and his murder was savage and totally excessive.

Even if Brian Rattigan did not know that Eddie McCabe was going to be murdered in the fashion that he was, he was the head of his gang and he was blamed on the streets. The general public and even other criminals could not believe the savagery that had been used to kill McCabe. It was a fatal blow to Rattigan's reputation.

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murder, Brian Rattigan got a lot of negative publicity on the street. Things then went from bad to worse for Rattigan when he lost yet another trusted associate just weeks later. On 30 December 2006, twenty-four-year-old Trevor Brunton from Broombridge Road in Cabra was spotted with a gun. He was seen by a bouncer in the toilets of a nightclub at the Spawell leisure complex in Templeogue with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun sticking out of the back of his trousers when he was walking into a cubicle. Other bouncers came to the scene. Brunton came out of the cubicle voluntarily and was restrained. A number of bouncers then frogmarched Brunton through the nightclub to hold him until Gardaí arrived. When Brunton attempted to take the gun from his trousers into his hand, a bouncer slapped his wrist causing the weapon to fall to the ground. One of the security men picked up the gun and placed it into a money bag and later gave it to Gardaí. There were eight rounds in the magazine, ready to be fired.

Brunton was a big man and a keen GAA player, and was well able to handle himself, but was eventually restrained. Two of his friends were also detained but were later released without charge. When Brunton was taken into custody, it was discovered that he was renting an apartment in Castleknock.

The apartment, at Candlewood on the Castleknock Road, was searched, and thirty bags containing €159,361 worth of heroin and seventy-eight rounds of ammunition for the gun he had in the nightclub were found. Detectives also searched Brunton's address at Broombridge Road and recovered two silencers and more ammunition. The apartment in Castleknock had been rented with the sole intention of preparing the heroin to sell for the Rattigan gang. Not only was it dangerous, but it was also careless and ridiculous to bring a loaded gun into a crowded nightclub, especially as he didn't even hide it properly when he went to use the toilet. Gardaí could not believe their luck. Brunton had served himself up on a platter. He had long been a target. He was regarded as being a middle-ranking member of the Rattigan gang. Brunton's job was to be a ‘minder' of the product, which was a job with a high degree of trust. Brunton later pleaded guilty to the possession of heroin for sale and supply and possession of the firearm and ammunition.

Detective Sergeant Joe Molloy told the court that Brunton possibly had the gun in the nightclub for three reasons. He could have brought it as an act of ‘bravado to impress girls', to give it to somebody else or to simply have it for his own protection. DS Molloy said that Brunton never gave a ‘satisfactory explanation' about why he brought the gun out with him that night. Sources say that Brunton was acting as a minder for a senior member of the Rattigan gang, who had left the nightclub before the incident, but Brunton has never told the full story.

Brunton was jailed for eight years for the drugs possession charge and handed a consecutive five-year term for possession of the firearm. The last four years of the sentence were suspended on condition that he keep the peace for four years after his release from prison. Brunton only had one previous conviction for a minor road traffic offence, but a lengthy jail sentence was another blow to Rattigan, who was seeing his gang slowly fall apart.

Things didn't get any better in early 2007 with Rattigan receiving another setback when his close friend Karl Kavanagh, whose house he had been in after Declan Gavin's murder, was caught with a gun. Then Wayne McNally narrowly survived a murder attempt.

On 13 February, members of the Crime Task Force attached to Crumlin Garda Station, led by Detective Inspector Brian Sutton, received intelligence that Kavanagh was in possession of a firearm in his family home on Cooley Road. A search of the attic of the house, conducted by Sergeant Dave Lynch resulted in a 9mm Smith and Wesson handgun being recovered. Kavanagh immediately took full responsibility for the firearm. He told Gardaí he didn't know whether or not it was loaded. He said he had taken it into the house two days previously, and his mother did not know that he had it there. He said that he was holding the gun for somebody, but would not name names because he feared for his and his family's safety. Kavanagh was twenty-four at the time of the incident. He was one of Joey Rattigan's best friends, and had taken Joey's murder, which had occurred five years previously, badly. He had amassed six criminal convictions for traffic and public order offences since his friend's killing. He was not really involved in the feuding and was not a player in the Rattigan gang, but was, nevertheless, close to the extended Rattigan family because his sister was Ritchie Rattigan's partner. Karl Kavanagh had been with Brian Rattigan before and after the murder of Declan Gavin. He had been arrested in relation to the killing, and told Gardaí that he was afraid his house would be burnt down if he co-operated with them. Gardaí believed that Kavanagh was only holding the gun for somebody as a favour and he pleaded guilty to possession of the gun. Judge Tony Hunt also had sympathy for Kavanagh, and said that he accepted that Kavanagh did not have a serious criminal record and was a ‘small cog in a big wheel'. The judge added that because of his early guilty plea it would be ‘unjust' to impose the minimum mandatory sentence of five years, although he added that ‘this is not a marker for other firearms cases. This sentence is based on these specific circumstances.' Detective Garda Gerard Fahy told the court that Kavanagh would not be considered a ‘hard man', and he would be surprised if he had ever actually fired the gun. Kavanagh was jailed for three years.

Karl Kavanagh might have been a ‘small cog in a big wheel', but Wayne McNally was turning into a big, big fish in the Rattigan gang. McNally, along with Anthony Cannon, was now one of the most senior members of the Rattigan crew. Wayne McNally had been with Rattigan in the car in Bluebell in February 2003, when Rattigan shot at the Gardaí. McNally had pleaded guilty to his involvement. While Cannon and McNally were becoming more senior members of the gang, Shay O'Byrne was being actively pursued by the other side. O'Byrne had received several warnings that his life was in danger, and was given advice about his personal security.

McNally was born on 19 December 1984 and grew up in Drimnagh. He had several different addresses, and seemed to live between them. He lived in Rosemount Court in Kilmainham, Loreto Court in Dublin 8 and Baltinglass in Co. Wicklow. McNally was known as a loose cannon, and petty drug dealers were also terrified of him. He had a casual ambivalence towards violence and was happy to dish out beatings whenever the occasion called for it. The extent of McNally's violent tendencies was illustrated in a court appearance in July 2004, when he pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to a female motorist and unlawfully seizing her car on 2 January 2003, outside an apartment in Mount Argus in Harold's Cross. Detective Garda Jonathan Kelly told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that two men approached a woman as she left an apartment with a friend at around 9.30 p.m. Wayne McNally cut the woman's throat for absolutely no reason, and then hijacked her car and drove away. The victim was taken to hospital, but fortunately her injuries were minor. Although her physical injuries were not too bad, the woman's mental injuries were serious and she was left unable to go out at night for fear of falling victim to a similar attack. The judge described the victim as an ‘innocent young woman' and the incident as ‘serious, inexcusable and unjustified' before warning McNally that he was lucky that he had not been charged with a more serious offence. While McNally was on bail for the stabbing and hijacking incident, he committed the crime with Brian Rattigan in Bluebell. He was given an eighteen-month sentence for being in the stolen car with Rattigan and Wayne Zambra. He was handed two three-year sentences for the stabbing and theft of the woman's car, which were to run concurrently – meaning he received a total sentence of just four and a half years. To rub salt into the wounds, the final six months were suspended. The judge said he hoped McNally would use his time in custody to tackle his drug problem. However, he did not serve even close to his full sentence. He was back on the streets in late 2006 – just months before Eddie McCabe was murdered.

On 20 February 2007 at about 9.00 p.m., McNally was with his girlfriend and a male friend at a house in Gray Square in the Liberties, when there was a knock on the door. McNally was greeted by a lone gunman who shot him at point blank range with a sawn-off shotgun, hitting him in the face and head. McNally managed to run upstairs and barricade himself into a bedroom, while the gunman escaped in a getaway car that was found nearby.

McNally had been using the address as a ‘safe house' and knew that his life was in serious danger, having been warned on numerous occasions by DI Gabriel O'Gara and Superintendent Tom Mulligan. Half of his nose was blown off during the attack, and he also had injuries to his legs, arms and shoulders. He was rushed to St James's Hospital in a serious but stable condition. He later made a full recovery, although he required plastic surgery to fix his nose. Two detectives were placed on twenty-four-hour armed guard outside his hospital ward, so that members of the Thompson gang did not come back to finish the job.

There was no doubt that the incident was a serious murder attempt, and McNally was lucky to escape with relatively minor injuries. Two well-known members of the Thompson gang were arrested in connection with the shooting but were never charged. Nevertheless, the shooting meant that between his stay in hospital and keeping his head down after he was released, McNally was out of action for several months, just when he was needed most by the Rattigan gang.

An incident occurred in July 2007, which illustrated just how cheap life had become. In early 2000, a man called Jonathan Dunne lost a consignment of heroin worth €50,000 that belonged to the Thompson gang. Instead of shooting Dunne or making him work to pay the money back, he was told – Godfather-style – that the day would come when a favour would be called in. That day duly arrived and the favour was, predictably, a big one. A twenty-year-old, nicknamed ‘Mad Dog', who occasionally worked as a driver for Freddie Thompson, was involved in a bitter dispute with a twenty-one-year-old called Ian Kenny, from Monasterboice Road in Crumlin. There was an allegation that Kenny was a Garda informant, and word began to spread around Crumlin that he was a ‘rat'. The row between the pair was becoming increasingly violent, and, on 27 September 2006, shots were fired into the Kenny family home in a drive-by attack. Ian Kenny gave a description of the car to Gardaí. Then three uniformed officers took up duty outside the house to make sure that the gang did not come back for seconds. Ian Kenny was not happy that Sergeant Mark Clarke from Crumlin Garda Station and two of his female colleagues were trying to ensure his safety. So he went outside his house and started giving abuse to the officers for doing their job. Suddenly, the car that had shot up the house earlier returned. Ian Kenny threw a beer bottle he was carrying at the car. The bottle smashed the front passenger window. A sawn-off shotgun appeared from out of the broken window and pointed towards Kenny. Sergeant Clarke realised the danger Kenny was in, and jumped on top of him, pushing him to the ground to safety. However, Sergeant Clarke was struck with the full force of the blast and was hit in the chest and arm. He fell to the ground thinking that he was going to die. Assistance was immediately summoned to the scene. As the brave Garda lay on the concrete, Ian Kenny, who was drunk, leaned over the critically ill officer, who had taken bullets meant for him, and shouted: ‘Die, you bastard, die.' An unmarked patrol car drove by and Detective Garda Willie Ryan was on the scene in seconds. Ryan manhandled his injured colleague into the back of the car and rushed to St James's Hospital. Fortunately, Mark Clarke didn't die and made a full recovery from his injuries, but still has eleven of the shotgun pellets in his body, as the medics could not remove them. He is now back at work, although he has transferred out of the ‘G' district.

Three people would later be convicted for their roles in the shooting. Even with the shooting of a member of An Garda Síochána, ‘Mad Dog' still vowed to make Kenny pay for ‘touting'. He was doing more and more work for Freddie Thompson and his men, and was accepted into the gang. ‘Mad Dog' explained the history of his row with Ian Kenny and told members of the gang that he wanted to have him shot. They didn't object and said they knew just the man for the job – Jonathan Dunne. The only problem was that Jonathan Dunne and Ian Kenny were lifelong friends. However, you do not turn down an order from the Thompson gang if you value your legs, and Dunne had no choice but to plan the shooting. Ian Kenny, who was a father of two, was no innocent and was involved in criminality at a low level. He had already served a sentence in Mountjoy in 2005, and had survived a vicious prison beating ordered by his sworn enemy. On 4 July 2007, Jonathan Dunne told Kenny that he was going out to buy a quantity of herbal cannabis in South Dublin with another man and invited his friend to join him. The trio drove to a shopping complex in Stillorgan. Johnny Dunne parked the car and said that he had to get something from the boot. He had hidden a sawn-off shotgun earlier in the day and took it out of the boot. Dunne then walked to the window of his own car and fired at Kenny at point blank range. The first shot struck him in the shoulder and Kenny stared, frozen, not believing that one of his best mates was trying to kill him. Dunne fired again, aiming for the shoulder, but he had no experience of using a gun and hit Kenny in the head. The twenty-two-year-old threw his victim from the car then drove to a nearby wooded area, where he made an unsuccessful attempt to burn the car. Dunne panicked and began running up the Lakelands Road, where he was observed by a passing patrol car from Tallaght Garda Station. He was covered in Ian Kenny's blood and brain matter. Dunne swiftly put his hands up and admitted that he was responsible for the attempted murder. Gardaí were puzzled about what had happened. It was one of the most botched and amateur murder attempts in a long time. No criminal with an iota of experience uses their own private car to carry out a murder, and certainly doesn't run away from the scene into the hands of investigators and admit to the crime. Dunne had no previous convictions and wasn't known to Gardaí. Maybe the fact that he was ordered to kill one of his best friends made him blow the whole job. The pieces of the jigsaw started to come together when Dunne told detectives from Crumlin that he owed a favour to two men ‘who run things' in the local area. Although he was too scared to name names, it soon became clear that he was talking about Thompson gang members. Gardaí soon learned about the lost drugs and that Dunne had been told that he and his family would be murdered if he didn't carry out the shooting. Jonathan Dunne told Gardaí that the incident was the ‘most horrible moment of my life'. ‘If I could take it back I would. I am sorry for what was done. Ian was my friend. I was told to put two shots in his head but hadn't got the bottle. I am not a killer.' He was charged with the attempted murder and pleaded guilty. He was handed a twelve-year sentence, which the Kenny family called a ‘disgrace'. After he was shot in the head and shoulder, Kenny immediately lost consciousness and never woke up. He was fed through a tube in St Vincent's Hospital, and had no control over his bodily functions. His family finally took the decision to turn off his life support machine in July 2009, just over two years after he was shot. Because Jonathan Dunne had already been convicted of Kenny's attempted murder, he could not be re-charged with his killing.