Pensioner murdered by intruders at farmhouse
A murder hunt was launched today after the killing of a pensioner during a violent break-in at a house in Co Antrim.
Joshua McClenaghan, 65, died when he was tied up and beaten by intruders while he was visiting an elderly friend at his farmhouse outside Antrim.
Mr McClenaghan was leaving the home of his friend, in his 80s, when he was confronted by a group of attackers who apparently forced him back into the house and tied up both men, said police.
The older man eventually managed to free himself and raise the alarm. He was taken to hospital for treatment.
Police discovered Mr McClenaghan’s body when they arrived at the isolated house on the Kilgavanagh Road. He lived a short distance away at Crosskennan Road, Antrim.
The dead man’s Peugeot 405 car was stolen by the gang as they made their getaway and found abandoned some distance away.
The fleeing gang are then thought by police to have stolen a blue Honda Concerto which in turn was abandoned at Duncairn Gardens in north Belfast.
A Police Service spokesman said they did not know the motive for the forced entry to the farmhouse, but the result was murder.
A post-mortem is to be carried out on the victim.
Police said they urgently wanted to contact a ginger-haired woman with a southern Irish accent who yesterday called at the house in a yellow van and who was trying to sell towels, pillowcases and shoes.
They also appealed for anyone else, anywhere in Northern Ireland who had been visited by a similar woman to contact them.
