Donegal man found guilty of wife's murder
A 40-year-old man accused of the murder of his estranged wife was sentenced to life today at the at Central Criminal Court.
Mr Gary McCrea (aged 40) of Ballybulgin, Laghy, Co Donegal, had denied the murder of his wife and the mother of his four children Mrs Dolores McCrea (aged 39) of Ballintra, Co Donegal, on a date unknown between January 20 and January 22, 2004.
The State’s case was that Mr McCrea murdered his wife and then burned her body in a fire at the rear of the old family home.
The jury of nine men and three women deliberated for four hours and 37 minutes today before delivering its unanimous decision to a packed courtroom.
Mr Justice Michael Hanna told Mr McCrea that there was "but one sentence that I can impose on you" before sentencing him to life imprisonment.
Mr McCrea stood holding onto the wooden bench in Court Three, separated from his parents by two prison officers.
The family of Dolores McCrea sat united in the third and fourth benches of the tense courtroom as the verdict was delivered.
Her parents, brothers, sisters and two daughters present in court breathed a sigh of relief as the guilty verdict was handed down.
Afterwards Ms McCrea’s oldest daughter, Sharon McCrea (aged 19), spoke to the media on behalf of her family.
She said the family was "relieved" that the trial had "come to an end and that the jury have returned with a guilty verdict and that justice has been done".
"You must remember that there are two families here that are victims, the McCreas and the McGrorys,“ she said.
“My mother was a wonderful mother, daughter, sister and friend to us all. She will never be forgotten.
"I would like to thank the local people of Ballintra, Donegal, who have been there since Mummy’s death, and to the local garda who carried out the investigation in a professional manner and who kept us informed at this difficult time.
"We ask the media to let us to return to Donegal to pick up our lives. I’ve three younger sisters who need to move on with their lives without the glare of publicity.
“No more further statements or interviews will be given by the family. Thank you," she said.
During the 10-day murder trial the jury heard that the father-of-four said in the months before the murder that "if he had his way he would f***ing kill her".
The deceased's mother, Mrs Kathleen McGrory, told prosecuting counsel, Mr Paul O’Higgins SC, that her daughter’s marriage broke up in August 2003 and Dolores moved out of the family home with her four young daughters, who were then aged 18, 14, seven and five.
The deceased’s mother said the accused rang her on one occasion in August 2003 and said Dolores "wasn’t a fit mother".
"If he had his way he would f***ing kill her and that he would stab her", the court heard.
The eldest daughter of the deceased woman, 19-year-old Sharon McCrea, told the jury she moved out of the family home in April 2003 with her mother and sisters.
Her mother, she said, worked in a local pub in Ballintra. Sharon McCrea said things weren’t good between her parents.
Initially her mother, she said, had full custody of the three younger children with her father having access to them on Saturdays.
"He wasn’t happy with Mum getting full custody," Sharon McCrea said. She said her father was later granted joint custody of the children.
She said her mother was offered €20,000 as a settlement from her father for the house, which she hadn’t agreed to accept.
Sharon McCrea told the court that there had been a custody dispute between her father and her mother after they split up in 2003.
"He always maintained that Mum didn’t care about any of the children, that he wanted to get full custody.
“He said that he was going to keep fighting in the courts for full custody. He said he’d fight and that if he didn’t get it that he’d kill her.
“He’d be able to do time for her, that he’d be out in no time and that he’d get his family back."
Her mother, Sharon McCrea said, always wore gold jewellery, including three rings.
She then identified a ring shown to her in court saying: "That’s the same one that Mum wore."
Sharon McCrea said she had not seen her father over Christmas in 2003 and only saw him within a few days of her mother’s disappearance.
He called their home in Ballintra while she was minding the younger children.
Sharon McCrea claims that her father asked her to "speak to the health board".
The 19-year-old told the court that she was upset by this conversation with her father.
Sharon McCrea said she last saw her mother alive when Dolores McCrea left to go to Donegal to play a game of darts at 7.25pm on January 20, 2004.
Dolores McCrea's second-oldest daughter, who was aged just 14 at the time, told the court that her father said he was going to kill her mother.
"He told me he was going to kill my mother. He told me he was going to stab my mother and rip her guts out."
The 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she was living with her father at the time her mother disappeared.
The 15-year-old told the jury that she originally moved out with her mother after her parents split up in April 2003 and her mother initially had full custody of the four girls.
The teenager said that her father used to ring her several times a day. "He would tell me if I moved with him I would have a better life."
The teenager told the court that the accused said to her that her mother just wanted her "to be there to do the cleaning and the tidying up and looking after the girls", she added.
"He used to go on about other men, that she was a whore. He used to call her names. He used to say she was ‘riding’ people, that she was a tramp and a walking disease," the teenager told the court.
She said she was upset about this and that she attended a psychologist. "My father told me that I should get away from there, that I would have a better life (with him)."
"He told me that if I stayed with my mum and sisters, a man called Willie Armstrong would become my new father," she said.
"He used to tell me that I wasn’t wanted there," she added. "I heard it so much that I believed him."
She said she moved to her father’s home in Ballybulgin in August 2003. The first few days, she told the court, were "okay" but after a while, she said, "every conversation" was about her mother.
The teenager told the court her father called her mother a "tramp" and that she was allegedly involved in relationships with different men, including Mr Willie Armstrong from Kesh in Co Fermanagh.
The teenager said her father "really" had "it in" for this man. "He did make me believe my mum was having an affair with Willie Armstrong," she told the court.
She added that her father had allegedly talked about getting a man to "badly beat Willie Armstrong up".
"He told me he was going to kill my mother. He told me he was going to stab my mother and rip her guts out," Dolores McCrea’s 15-year-old daughter told the court.
The sister of the deceased woman, Carmel McGrory, said she received a phone call from her niece, Sharon McCrea, who was worried about her mother as she hadn’t come home, at 10am on January 21.
Before midday, Ms McGrory arrived at her niece’s home and the two of them began to search for Dolores.
They rang friends of Dolores and drove around the local area to see if they could find her.
Ms McGrory told the court that her niece rang one of the women on her sister’s darts team, who confirmed that Dolores had not turned up at the match the night before.
The court heard that they decided to drive to the old family home in Ballybulgin, as Dolores had said she was going to call to her estranged husband on the evening of January 20 to sell him her red Peugot 306.
Ms McGrory told the court that the accused told his daughter not to worry. "He said she (Dolores) was probably ‘whoring around’ with somebody," the jury heard.
"I put my hands up and said: ‘I don’t want to get involved in any family matters but there is her (Dolores’) car," said Ms McGrory.
She then added that she asked Mr McCrea how her sister got to darts in Donegal town.
He said she took a lift from a car coming up the road, Ms McGrory added. "After we left Ballybulgin, I rang Mammy and said I felt there was something wrong," Ms McGrory told the jury.
At 5.30pm on January 21, 2004, Carmel McGrory rang Ballyshannon garda station to report her sister missing.
Gary McCrea, the court heard, told investigating gardaí: "You think I put her in the f***ing fire."
Garda Brendan McMonagle told prosecuting counsel Mr Richard Lyons BL that on January 22, 2004, he discovered what he believed to be human bones in a smouldering fire contained in the chassis of an old mobile home at the rear of the McCrea home.
He said he first saw a piece of bone six inches long with a ball on the end of it in the smouldering fire.
Gda McMonagle said he was "shocked and alarmed" by what he discovered. He then uncovered a second piece of bone, which he believed was part of a spinal column.
"I thought it was human but I couldn’t be sure," he said. A short while later, garda McMonagle said Mr McCrea was shown by gardaí the smouldering fire.
He told the court he asked the accused what he believed the bones were. "It could be an auld dog or something," Mr McCrea allegedly replied.
"I said: ‘Gary, you must know what it is.’ He replied: ‘I don’t but I know what you’re thinking,’" garda McMonagle told the court.
The garda then said he asked Mr McCrea what he believed he was thinking, to which Mr McCrea allegedly said: "You think I put her in the f***ing fire," referring to the deceased woman.
Detective Sergeant Shane Henry, attached to the ballistics section at Garda Headquarters, told the court he initially examined the smouldering fire late in the evening of January 22, 2004.
Along with the State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, and other technical gardaí, Det Sgt Henry conducted a "fingertip" investigation of the scene.
"We got down on our hands and knees and carefully removed the bones from the smouldering fire," he said.
The fire, he said, "continued to smoulder" and he secured two powder extinguishers and smothered the remains of the fire.
The next day, when Det Sgt Henry, returned to the scene the fire was "still smouldering" even though it was raining, the court heard.
Det Sgt Henry said corroded parts of a Nokia mobile phone were identified from the debris of the fire and also a "severely corroded" gold signet ring.
Det Sgt Henry said there was the presence of partially burned tyres and bushes in the fire and that there was a smell of diesel fuel at the scene.
He told the court in his conclusion that "an intense and prolonged fire took place at the McCrea home".
The fire, he said, would have reached temperatures between 600 and 1,000 degrees centigrade.
"It was a quite severe and intense fire," he added. Det Sgt Henry told the court that temperatures of between 600 and 850 degrees centigrade are required for a human cremation.
He said two sticks recovered near the smouldering fire were, in his opinion, used to "stoke and promote the burning of the fire".
Exhibits officer Detective Sergeant Stewart Doyle told the jury that he came into possession of many items of evidence in relation to the case, including a video of a documentary entitled Trial Of Guilt.
This video, along with other home videos, the court heard, was discovered at the home of Mr McCrea by investigating gardaí.
Det Sgt Doyle said this video caught his attention. He said he viewed this video, which had been taped from a television programme, and it told the story of a man called Simon Carter who went missing in Swansea in England.
Det Sgt Doyle said this man was murdered and the culprits buried the body initially before digging it back up and encasing it in concrete.
The court heard the body was dug up a third time and jack-hammers were used to remove the concrete.
Det Sgt Doyle said the culprits then spent a day burning the body, using diesel.
The forensic dental surgeon for the State has told the trial that "heavily carbonised" teeth recovered from a smouldering fire at the McCrea home were consistent with the dental records of Dolores McCrea.
"In my conclusion there is a very high probability that the remains that I examined were the remains of Dolores McCrea," Forensic dental surgeon for the State Dr Paul Keogh told the Central Criminal Court.
Dr Keogh said the bones were dental bones with teeth attached.
He said he compared Dolores McCrea’s dental records, obtained from her dentist in Donegal, with the teeth recovered by gardaí from the fire.
Dr Keogh said the teeth had been "exposed to a high degree of temperature" and were very frail.
"I can’t be 100% conclusive, but I found nothing in her remains that I examined that were not in the ante-mortem record," he said.
Unusually, the State Pathologist said she could "not comment" on the cause of death of charred skeletal remains discovered at the McCrea home, due to the condition of the bones.
"It was very difficult to ascertain the cause of death," Dr Cassidy said. "All the cells" and "all the organs had been burned away", she told the jury.
She added that DNA analysis was unsuccessful in confirming the identity of the deceased because of the "degree of incineration or cremation" of the bones.
Mr Alister McClay told the jury that he had known the McCreas for many years and had been aware that they had broken up.
After the break-up, Mr McClay said the accused talked "a lot" about Dolores. At Christmas 2003, Mr McClay said he bumped into the accused in Carolan’s pub in Laghy.
"He was having a conversation about Dolores and the children. He was very bitter," Mr McClay told the jury.
"He never used her name, it was ‘bitch’ or ‘whore’," he added. Mr McClay said he believed that the accused was at his "wit’s end" with the break-up of the marriage and the custody of his four teenage daughters.
"He made a comment that he was going to sort it out," Mr McClay said. "He more or less said he was going to take matters into his own hands," he told the jury.
After he told the accused to "cop himself on", Mr McCrea allegedly said: "I’ll do time for her," referring to his estranged wife.
