Free The Cold Case Files by Barry Cummins

gang, which was led by Dessie O’Hare. A manhunt continued for O’Hare across Ireland for three weeks after John O’Grady’s rescue, before intelligence was
gathered which led to his capture in north Co. Kilkenny during a shootout on 27 November. Detectives from Kilkenny and Tipperary joined with members of the Army in mounting a roadblock, which led
to O’Hare’s arrest. Another gunman was shot dead during the operation that led to the capture of Ireland’s most wanted man. O’Hare was later given a 40-year prison sentence
but has since been released as part of the Good Friday Agreement. The work done by Gardaí from Kilkenny in helping to bring Dessie O’Hare to justice was admirable. Their sense of
satisfaction with being involved in such an arrest was tempererd somewhat by the ongoing investigation into the murder of Nancy Smyth, which had by now stalled with no sign of an early
breakthrough.
    The murder of Nancy Smyth was not the first time a killer tried to hide his crime by setting fire to his victim’s home, and it wouldn’t be the last. Co. Kilkenny was again the scene
of a most horrific case in December 2008, when three innocent lives were taken by a killer and arsonist. In the early hours of Christmas morning of that year, 30-year-old Sharon Whelan was
strangled to death in her home in Windgap in the south of the county. Sharon had been renting a farmhouse where she lived with her two daughters Zsara and Nadia, who were just seven and two years
old. Sharon did not know her killer—a 23-year-old man, Brian Hennessy, who was a postal worker and lived in Windgap village. He went to Sharon’s isolated home and, after strangling her,
he spent a number of hours in the house before he then set at least two fires to try and cover his tracks. He then callously walked out the door as the two little girls slept in the house. Both
Zsara and Nadia died from smoke inhalation. Brian Hennessy is now serving one life sentence for the three murders. Hennessy was caught through DNA evidence. It was the quick
thinking of brave neighbours of Sharon’s who removed the three bodies from the burning farmhouse which later allowed pathologist Maurice Murphy to determine that Sharon was dead before the
fire was set, and a major criminal investigation led to the capture of a triple-killer.
    Some of the detectives who investigated the murders of Sharon, Zsara and Nadia could remember the unsolved case of Nancy Smyth. Once Brian Hennessy was identified as the culprit for the murders
in Windgap, it was clear that there was no link whatsoever with Nancy’s case. The two cases showed that two separate killers had struck in the county just over twenty years apart and both had
used arson as a means to try and hide evidence of murder. If Sharon Whelan’s neighbours had not managed to remove the three bodies from the burning farmhouse before it was too late, the
evidence of murder might have been lost and the deaths might have been blamed on an accidental fire. Similarly, if the fire set in Nancy’s home in September 1987 had taken hold fully, it
might have been wrongly assumed that there was nothing suspicious about her death.
    The one major difference between these two cases is that the murderer of Sharon and Zsara and Nadia was caught, and caught quickly. The people of Co. Kilkenny could breathe a sigh of relief that
a dangerous killer was off the streets. There was to be no such feeling in the aftermath of Nancy Smyth’s murder. Her killer would remain free to roam the streets.
    The Cold Case Unit have continued to carry out a full review of Nancy Smyth’s case. There are hundreds of recommendations which the Unit have made about new angles to explore, old
witnesses to re-interview, original crime scene material to be located and examined.
    Nancy Smyth is buried at St Kieran’s Cemetery in east Kilkenny, not too far from Nowlan Park GAA grounds. The use of the term ‘city’ to describe
Kilkenny comes from a