Murder
On the evening of the 25 June 1996, Gilligan drug gang members Charles Bowden, Brian Meehan, Peter Mitchell and Seamus Ward had met at their distribution premises on the Greenmount Industrial Estate. Bowden, the gang's distributor and ammunition quartermaster, had supplied the three with a Colt Python revolver loaded with .357 Magnum Semiwadcutter bullets.
On 26 June 1996, while Guerin was driving her red Opel Calibra she stopped at a red traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway near Newlands Cross, on the outskirts of Dublin. Not knowing she was being followed, she was shot six times, fatally, by one of two men sitting on a motorcycle.
About an hour after Guerin was murdered, a meeting took place in Moore Street, Dublin between Bowden, Meehan, and Mitchell. Bowden later denied under oath in court that the purpose of the meeting was the disposal of the weapon but an excuse in a public place to place them away from the incident.
At the time of her murder, Traynor was seeking a High Court order against Guerin, to prevent her from publishing a book about his involvement in organised crime. Guerin was killed two days before she was due to speak at a Freedom Forum conference in London. The topic of her segment was "Dying to Tell the Story: Journalists at Risk."
Her funeral was attended by Ireland's Taoiseach John Bruton, the head of the armed forces and covered live by Raidió Teilifís Éireann. On 4 July, labour unions across Ireland had called for a moment of silence in her memory, which was duly observed by people around the country. Guerin is buried in Dardistown Cemetery, County Dublin.
Read more about this topic: Veronica Guerin
Famous quotes containing the word murder:
“A joke, even if it be a lame one, is nowhere so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one: what, then, shall I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“Suddenly, she wasn’t drunk anymore. Her hand was steady and she was cool. Like somebody making funeral arrangements for a murder not yet committed.”
—John Paxton (1911–1985)