Disappeared victim ‘was shot’
Disappeared IRA victim Danny McIlhone was shot a number of times before being buried in a secret grave, an inquest into his death has heard.
Nearly three decades after the then 21-year-old west Belfast man was abducted and killed in May 1981, a jury took just minutes to return a verdict of unlawful killing.
Geoff Knupfer, an investigative scientist leading the search for the bodies of the Disappeared, told the hearing the IRA admitted details of the shooting to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains (ICLVR).
“I’m absolutely satisfied from information we received from direct sources in the Republican movement that he was shot,” he said.
The partial remains of Mr McIlhone were uncovered last November in lonely bogland at Ballynultagh, near the village of Lacken in the Wicklow Mountains, in the Irish Republic.
Detective Inspector Jody Crowe, from the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, said a leather cowboy boot found during an excavation of the site was a breakthrough for investigators.
The dead man’s brother, Christopher McIlhone, was shown the light tan-coloured boot and said he remembered Danny wearing them when he last saw him in Dublin.
The inquest heard that the young man was abducted around May 12, 1981, from Ballymun’s now demolished Pearse Tower, where he was staying at the time.
Mr Knupfer said the IRA admitted taking Mr McIlhone to a “premises” in Ballynultagh for questioning about “certain matters” and that a Provo shot him a number of times when a struggle broke out between them.
“We know there was more than one gunshot, but not how many,” he said.
Asked by a member of the jury, sitting at Dublin City Coroner’s Court, whether the ICLVR knew who pulled the trigger, Mr Knupfer said they had no information about the actual killer.
Recovery
The former Greater Manchester detective led an archaeological time-team who painstakingly excavated a 22-acre site near a stream called Ballydonnell Brook at Ballynultagh.
After dividing and mapping out the entire area, forensic investigators, using ground radar, scanners, probes and cadaver dogs, eventually found the left-footed cowboy boot.
Partial remains recovered with it at a square, marked grid number 82, were sent to a DNA laboratory in West Yorkshire where they matched samples taken from Mr McIlhone’s brothers and sisters.
Mr Knupfer said the DNA analysis, the identification of the cowboy boot and evidence from the IRA left him absolutely satisfied the remains were that of Mr McIlhone.
Coroner Dr Brian Farrell stressed to jurors that an inquest cannot return a verdict of murder or manslaughter, before accepting their ruling of unlawful killing by a person or persons unknown.
“This is a terrible crime,” he added.
“I will only be speaking for the community in saying that we deplore what happened.”
