Murder of Marilyn Rynn

Last updated

Marilyn Rynn was an Irish woman who was murdered at the age of 41 after being attacked on the way home from a work Christmas party in the early hours of 22 December 1995. Her killer was the first in Ireland to be caught using DNA testing.

Contents

Background

Marilyn Rynn lived in Blanchardstown and was employed in the civil service with the Department of the Environment. [1]

Crime

On the night of 21 December 1995, Marilyn Rynn attended a work Christmas party with her colleagues at Shieling Hotel in Raheny. She left the party at 2am and later met with friends for food on O'Connell Street. At around 3am she took the Nitelink bus home from Westmoreland Street. [2]

After disembarking near her home, Rynn took a shortcut home through Tolka Valley Park where she was attacked. She had been raped and strangled. [2]

Investigation

Marilyn Rynn was reported missing on St. Stephen's Day after she failed to turn up for Christmas dinner at her parents' home.[ citation needed ] The initial investigation was hampered by inaccurate witness reports with a witness claiming to have seen her boarding a bus on Friday 22 December and from a friend who claimed to have received a phone call from Rynn on Friday. [3]

Rynn's body was recovered on 7 January 1996, from Tolka Valley Park after a cadaver dog found her during a planned search.[ citation needed ] Semen was recovered from her body. It had been preserved by the freezing temperatures at the time. [4]

Gardaí investigated a potential link between the murder and the disappearance of Annie McCarrick upon learning that Annie had an acquaintance who had contact with Rynn before her death. [5]

Gardaí took over 2000 statements and 354 blood samples over the course of the investigation. [2]

David Lawler

David Lawler originally of Baltinglass, County Wicklow and living in Blanchardstown, was living nearby Rynn at the time of her death. He had also attended a Christmas party on the same night as Rynn. He is first cousins with infamous criminal Larry Murphy and attended school with him. [6] [7]

During house to house inquires following the discovery of Rynn's body, Lawler admitted to being in the area at the time of the crime. He subsequently gave a blood sample in February 1996. The DNA match returned in July 1996 and further tests confirmed this. He was charged with Rynn's murder in August 1996. [2]

Following his arrest, Lawler confessed and said he was overcome by "sexual and homicidal impulses". [4] He had been walking home behind Rynn through Tolka Valley Park when he raped and strangled her on "spontaneous impulse". [2] Prior to his arrest he had used the internet to research DNA and falsely believed evidence of his crime could not survive the elements and consented to giving a blood sample. [4]

He pleaded guilty at trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment. [8]

Media

Marilyn Rynn's case was featured on Crimeline in 1996. [9] Her murder was also covered in the true crime books The Making of a Detective by Pat Marry, a Garda who investigated the murder, [10] and Lifers: Ireland's evil killers and how they were caught by Barry Cummins. [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chester Turner</span> American serial killer (born 1966)

Chester Dewayne Turner is an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and murdering fourteen women and an unborn baby in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1998.

The Kerry babies case was a 1984 investigation by the Garda Síochána in County Kerry, Ireland, into the killing of one newborn baby and the alleged killing of another, and the subject of a 3-part 2023 (UK) Channel 4 documentary “Murder: The Baby On The Beach.” The mother who concealed the second baby, Joanne Hayes, was arrested and charged with the murder of the first baby, of which she was erroneously thought to be the mother. The Gardaí were forced to drop the charges four years later and a tribunal of inquiry was launched. Its report was critical of the Garda conduct of the investigations, and it also concluded that Hayes had precipitated the death of her baby. Hayes has disputed this finding, and no charges were pressed. The parents and killer of the first baby have never been publicly identified, though arrests of a man and woman were made in 2023. In 2020, the Irish State formally apologised after 36 years to Joanne Hayes for wrongly accusing her of the murder and for the "appalling hurt and distress caused".

John Gilligan is a convicted Irish gangster. He was given a 28-year prison sentence for the trafficking of commercial quantities of cannabis resin. On appeal, this sentence was reduced to 20 years, and in October 2013, he was released after serving 17 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disappearance of Philip Cairns</span> 1986 disappearance of Irish schoolboy

Philip Cairns disappeared on the afternoon of 23 October 1986 while walking back to school in south Dublin, Ireland from his home in Ballyroan. A large-scale investigation was carried out but no trace of the boy has ever been found. His disappearance is now treated as a high-profile child murder case; the only similar incident in Ireland was the murder of Robert Holohan in January 2005. It is one of the most high-profile disappearances in recent Irish history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Raonaid Murray</span>

Raonaid Murray was an Irish teenager who was stabbed to death at the age of 17 in the early hours of 4 September 1999. As of March 2023, this murder case remains unsolved. The murder weapon has not been located either. Each year her family and the Garda Síochána issue new appeals for fresh information. In 2009, a tribute website was set up but was targeted by vandals and naysayers who posted upsetting messages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grangegorman killings</span> Series of murders

The Grangegorman killings were the homicide on 6 March 1997 of Sylvia Sheils and Mary Callinan, patients at St. Brendan's Psychiatric Hospital in Grangegorman, Dublin, Ireland. After giving a false confession, Dean Lyons was charged with the murders and placed on remand. In his statement to the Garda Síochána (police), Lyons gave details that would only be known to the murderer or to the investigators. After Lyons was charged, Mark Nash confessed to the killings, but later retracted his confession. In April 2015, Nash's trial for the murder of Sheils and Callinan began after an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the trial from going forward.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R806 road (Ireland)</span> Road in Ireland

The R806 road is a regional road in Dublin, Ireland.

Sophie Toscan du Plantier, a 39-year-old French woman, was killed outside her holiday home near Toormore, Goleen, County Cork, Ireland, on the night of 23 December 1996.

Larry Murphy is an Irish convicted felon. After his conviction for kidnapping, repeatedly raping, and attempted murder of a young Carlow woman on 11 February 2000, in the Wicklow Mountains, he was jailed in January 2001. His release from prison less than 10 years later drew widespread criticism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ireland's Vanishing Triangle</span> 1980s-1990s disappearances of women

Ireland's Vanishing Triangle is a term commonly used in the Irish media when referring to a number of high-profile disappearances of Irish women from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. Several other women were also murdered within the triangle and their cases remain unsolved as well. All of the cases appeared to share some common characteristics. The women's ages range from their late-teens to late-30s, they disappeared inexplicably and suddenly, and no substantial clues or evidence of their fate has ever been found despite large scale searches and campaigns by the Gardaí to find them. Gardaí believe their remains are likely to be buried in remote fields, bogs and forests. The triangle is in the eastern part of the island, roughly the boundaries of Leinster, in an 80-mile area outside Dublin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Adrian Donohoe</span> Irish police officer murdered during an armed robbery in 2013

Adrian Donohoe was an Irish detective in the Garda Síochána based at Dundalk Garda Station in County Louth, who was fatally shot in Bellurgan on 25 January 2013 during a robbery by an armed gang of five people on a credit union. He was the first garda officer to be murdered in the line of duty since 1996, and was afforded a full state funeral.

The Hutch–Kinahan feud is a major ongoing feud between two criminal organisations in Ireland that has resulted in the deaths of eighteen people, the majority of which have been perpetrated by the Kinahan family. The Hutch gang, led by Gerry Hutch, and the Kinahan Family, led by Daniel Kinahan, are the main participants.

Annie Bridget McCarrick is an American woman from Long Island, New York who went missing under suspicious circumstances on March 26, 1993, while she was residing in Ireland.

James Nolan was an Irish criminal who was convicted of rape and false imprisonment. He disappeared and his arm was subsequently found on a beach.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Ashling Murphy</span> 2022 murder in County Offaly, Ireland

Ashling Murphy was an Irish primary school teacher, traditional Irish musician and camogie player who was murdered in January 2022 while walking on the towpath of the Grand Canal at Cappincur, outside Tullamore, County Offaly. Her death gave rise to widespread public grief, as well as outrage over violence against women, and tens of thousands of people attended vigils in her memory. The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, and other Irish government ministers attended her funeral in Mountbolus, County Offaly, on 18 January.

Fiona Pender is an Irish woman who disappeared from her home in Tullamore, County Offaly on 23 August 1996 at the age of 25. She was seven months pregnant at the time of her disappearance. Gardaí suspect she was murdered.

Paiche Onyemaechi was a 25-year-old Malawian woman whose decapitated remains were discovered in Piltown, County Kilkenny in 2004. To date, her murder remains unsolved and her head has never been recovered.

Josephine 'Jo Jo' Dullard is an Irish woman who disappeared at the age of 21 on 9 November 1995. The last confirmed sighting of her was at a public phonebox in Moone, County Kildare. Gardaí suspect she is dead and was murdered.

Eileen Costello O'Shaughnessy was a 47-year-old Irish woman who was murdered on 30 November 1997 while working as a taxi driver in Galway city. Her murder remains unsolved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Jastine Valdez</span> 2018 murder in Ireland

Jastine Valdez was a Filipina woman living in Ireland who was abducted in Bray, County Wicklow and discovered murdered near Puck's Castle of Rathmichael in County Dublin on May 19, 2018.

References

  1. ↑ "Large turnout at service for Marilyn Rynn". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Fatal chance brought together an unlikely killer and his victim". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  3. ↑ "Investigation dogged by error and ill luck". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  4. 1 2 3 "Killer trapped by his DNA". Irish Independent. 1998-01-27. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  5. ↑ "Rynn murder case may be linked to missing McCarrick". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  6. ↑ Michael, Neil (2020-02-27). "Women enduring hundreds of sexual abuse incidents before reporting it". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  7. ↑ "CLASSMATES FROM HELL; 2 of Ireland's most brutal sex beasts went to same school. - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  8. ↑ "Man who admits to murder of Marilyn Rynn is jailed for life". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  9. ↑ "Reconstruction of murder victim's last movements to be shown on "Crimeline"". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  10. ↑ "The Making of a Detective". Marry Investigations. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  11. ↑ Cummins, Barry (2004-10-26). Lifers: Ireland's evil killers and how they were caught. Gill & Macmillan Ltd. ISBN   978-0-7171-6274-1.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.