Hello everyone!
It's day 3 of True Crime Week and I had a request to cover a case from Ireland, so I did some research and decided on this one.
As always I would love to hear your thoughts about it.
This is the murder of Raonaid Murray.
Raonaid (Irish name for Rachel) Murray was born on January 1, 1982 to Jim and Deirdre Murray, she had an older sister and brother, the family lived in Glenageary, South Dublin. She loved reading and poetry and hoped that one day she would be a professional writer. In 1999, she worked at a fashion boutique named Sally May, not to far from her home. She was known as a soft spoken, well mannered teenager who had an active social life.
On the night of September 3, 1999 Murray finished her shift at the boutique at 9:00 pm and then met up with a friend at Scotts pub on Georges Street, a place that she would go often. She left the pub around 11:20 pm telling her friend that she was going to go home to change her clothes so she could meet some other friends at a nearby dance club. She was on foot and started towards her house that was about a 15 minute walk.
At 11:53 pm a female motorist witnesses a young man "hassling" Murray near an intersection. The witness also stated that Murray seemed to know the man and that the teenager seemed like she was trying to get away from him. The man was described as being 5'10" and around 22-25 years old. She described him as slender and "good-looking," with a haircut similar to that of Noel Gallagher from the band Oasis.
At 12:02 am another witness saw Murray walking alone, but about 8 minutes later someone else claimed to hear a female shout, "Fuck off!" Followed by a scream.
What happened after that is not 100% known.
What is known is that Murray was stabbed 4 times with a 6 inch kitchen knife, first into her chest, then in her left arm when she went to defend herself, lastly into her left side twice. Somehow even with these wounds she was able to make it along the remaining 100 yards out into Silchester Crescent where she died alone on the grass. There were no signs of sexual assault and she still had all of her belongings on her. The murder weapon never found. Investigators did not have much to go on, but regardless over the years they did hundreds of interviews, and made 14 arrests in pursuit of her killer, but none ever led to a conviction.
So let's discuss a couple of the leads investigators had.
One lead they had was a man that allegedly was acting strange when he got into a taxi that night near the crime scene. The taxi drivers said the man might have been wearing bloodstained clothing, he was trying to cover the stains on his pants and was also acting very agitated. When investigators looked into the area where the taxi driver had picked up the man they didn't find any evidence. That lead went cold.
About 9 years after Murray's murder the Garda Serious Crime Review Team reportedly took a harder look at the case. Detective Superintendent Christy Mangan and the team allegedly found mistakes. Such as police not properly following up with potential witnesses and some tension between law enforcement units might have had a negative impact on communication. In the end they thought that Murray's killer might have known her and on top of that they also thought that investigators should look at the possibility that the killer was a woman.
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| Charlotte and Linda |
Fast forward to 2006, siblings Charlotte and Linda Mulhall were sent to prison by an Irish court, for the fatal stabbing and dismemberment of Farah Swaleh Noor. They were known to the press as the "Scissor Sisters," because of how the killing was carried out as you may have guessed. Noor was a drifter that allegedly sought asylum in Ireland under false pretenses, it was said by police that he had reportedly been convicted of various crimes, but never served time and was facing rape allegations. He met the Mulhall family in 2001 and soon after started dating the girls mom, Kathleen Mulhall. By 2005 the relationship turned toxic, Kathleen told her daughters that Noor had been abusive towards her. This claim led to Noor being stabbed dozens of times and his body being dismembered. According to police reports Kathleen told them that Noor had once threatened her by saying "I'm going to fucking kill you, just like I did with Raonaid Murray." Investigators went diving in to see if they could find a possible connection between Noor and Murray, but they could not.
Police still believe that this was not the work of a random killer, that Murray knew her killer. There's no records of a similar attack before or after her murder near the Dublin region. Again the nature of her attack would also suggest that whoever killed her would have had some sort of personal grudge against her. Sadly, Raonaid's case is still unsolved and her family continues to hope that someone who saw or heard something will come forward and give them closure and Raonaid justice.
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