Gardaí apologise to family of man wrongly charged with murder
The Garda has reportedly issued a public apology to the family of a man who was wrongly arrested and charged in connection with the 1997 Grangegorman murders.
Dean Lyons, a 24-year-old homeless man and heroin addict, was arrested shortly after 59-year-old Sylvia Sheils and 61-year-old Mary Callinan were brutally stabbed to death at a psychiatric hospital in the Grangegorman area of Dublin in March 1997.
He confessed to the murders, was charged and sent to Mountjoy prison.
However, two months later, another man, British national Mark Nash, also confessed to the killings after being arrested in connection with the death of a Roscommon couple who were slain in a similar fashion.
Nash was later convicted of the couple's murders, but Mr Lyons spent another seven months in prison before gardaí admitted that his confession for the Grangegorman killings was false.
Mr Nash has not been charged with the Grangegorman murders, but remains the prime suspect. Mr Lyons died in 2000.
