Living With Evil (30 page)

‘Then she’s forcing us upstairs to sleep with her dirty bastard of a husband, so he could rape us instead of her.’

Hearing her sum up my own memories so bluntly was agonizing. We had shared the same pain as children, and we were still sharing it.

‘I cried in desperate fear going up those stairs every night. “It’s your turn, Michael,” I’d sob. “No, it’s your turn, Theresa.” We’d fight and hit each other, even though we loved each other so much. Then that bastard would be shouting, “Get in here, now!”

‘I can see him now, pissing in the bucket then pulling me into his bed and pinning me against the wall. I can still smell the shit and drink all over him.

‘After he raped me, I’d scream and literally climb the walls, shouting out for help. He punched and kicked me, telling me to shut up, and if I escaped downstairs then Mammy, that wicked witch, would tell me, “Get back up those stairs. He’ll beat me or rape me if you don’t. Go on, if you don’t want your Mammy to die!” She was never a mammy to me. You were my real mammy, not her. I love you so much.’

I rocked Theresa gently in my arms and told her I was sure we would get justice one day. I had a top legal team behind me now, she would see.

I spoke the words bravely, but inside I was shattered.

Once again, I had left Simon struggling to juggle his work with running the home and, with a heavy heart, I returned to England.

How I wish I could turn the clock back and never have let go of Theresa. Within days of my leaving, she ended her life.

Just as Martin had done ten years earlier, Theresa banged a nail into a doorframe and hanged herself. She was just thirty-three-years-old.

The grief and feeling of loss was indescribable. Theresa left a thirty-five-page suicide note addressed to me.

It contained unbearably graphic accounts of how she and Michael were sexually abused by my father, with my mother’s blessing.

The heartbreaking note also held her last request. Theresa didn’t want my parents to see her dead. She was terrified of them being near her, even as she lay in her coffin, and she wanted to be cremated and have her ashes scattered in the Irish sea at the pier at Dun Laoghaire, to make sure they never went near her again.

Martin had been buried in a family plot, and Theresa couldn’t bear the thought that one day my parents’ dead bodies would lay on top of hers. That’s how much they scared her.

I lay awake most nights, watching poor Simon fall slowly to sleep. How many more times did I have to burden him with my sorrows? We had three inquests to face now: Theresa’s, Michael’s and Noleen’s.

My mother and father stayed away from Theresa’s, thank God, but I was there to hear the coroner record that she had been sexually abused in childhood. It was a bittersweet victory.

Both of my parents attended Michael’s inquest in 2006. I hadn’t seen them in years, since I confronted them in the police station. They looked like frightening strangers to me. I was forty-four-years-old, but they made me feel nervous and insecure, like a scared little girl again.

My mother glared menacingly at me, spitting out a stream of lies and insults.

When I found the guts to glare back, she actually shouted: ‘I’ll fuckin’ stab her in a minute.’ The woman’s audacity was breathtaking.

Every fibre in my body tensed when my father took the stand. He was an old man by then, well into his seventies, and when he took off his jacket he had three dirty stains on the back of his blue sweater.

I gasped audibly. I felt so ashamed of him, and it plunged me straight back to the dreadful shame I experienced throughout my childhood, when I was scruffy and dirty and smelly like him.

I listened in horror as my parents tried to destroy Michael’s character, falsely accusing him of all sorts.

When I had my turn in the stand, I made sure the coroner heard the truth: Michael had been abused as a child. He was not on drugs, and he did not have a criminal record. We never found out exactly how he died.

I walked away holding my head high and feeling empowered to face my parents again at Noleen’s inquest - if they weren’t in jail first.

With Gerry’s help, I had called for a public inquiry into my case. It was thirty-three years since Noleen had died, and it was my last hope of having my parents convicted.

My phone rang out just before midnight on 31 August 2006.

Simon watched my jaw drop as I answered the call.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s happened?’

‘It’s my mother,’ I said flatly. ‘She died three hours ago.’

Josie Murphy had died peacefully in hospital, without pain. She was seventy-three-years-old.

I broke down sobbing, not for my mother, but for the innocent lives she had destroyed.

I had waited so many years for her face her crimes in court, and I felt robbed and cheated of that right.

As the news sank in, I realized I felt great relief too. One of my abusers was dead. Her reign of terror was finally over.

Noleen’s inquest took place at the Plaza Hotel in Tallaght. Tears soaked my cheeks as I listened to the post mortem. I was reminded that, amongst Noleen’s forty stab wounds, she had eighteen on her chest and fifteen on her neck. A number were inflicted after death.

Hearing those cold facts bounce off the wallpaper in the hotel conference hall made my daughter’s killing sound more callous than ever.

I thought of my evil, frenzied mother. How could any human be so cruel? And how could my father sit in that court as brazenly as he did, still scowling at me like I was a piece of dirt as he clung on to his wicked secrets, a frail pensioner?

When the verdict was finally returned I was flooded with relief. I couldn’t have lived if the verdict had gone against me, and having Noleen formally named as my daughter was an incredible victory.

It was the recognition I had craved for decades, and I was vindicated, to a degree.

But I’d be a liar if I said I felt justice had been done and I could live happily ever after.

All that had been proven was what I and my abusers already knew: I had a baby in my family home when I was eleven-years-old, and my baby was stabbed to death and dumped in a laneway.

Nobody had gone to prison for Noleen’s murder. My mother had died peacefully, a free woman. She had got away with murder, while Martin, Michael and Theresa served life sentences of emotional torture and died in appalling circumstances.

My father still had his freedom, despite the public humiliation the inquest had brought him.

I clung on to the hope that I’d get the public inquiry I so desperately wanted, and I was comforted when the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, said he was profoundly disturbed by the facts that came out of the inquest and was going to look at my case. But, it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to get my public inquiry. And there was another setback: my father was calling for a judicial review of the inquest in the High Court.

I was bemused. Why bother if he had nothing to do with Noleen’s conception, birth or death, as he claimed? And where on earth was the money coming from for his substantial legal bills?

I appealed against the decision not to order a public inquiry, but in November 2008 the new Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahearn, said he was sticking by it.

I was devastated. My daughter had been brutally murdered and my life had been ruined by sexual abuse. I wanted to try and meet Mr Ahearn to discuss everything, but unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. The police didn’t re-open Noleen’s murder file, and that meant the only ongoing legal action was my father’s call for the inquest to be reviewed.

My therapist diagnosed me with prolonged post-traumatic stress disorder and I struggled through every day. Simon, as ever, was my rock. He bought me flowers, gave me hugs and tried his best to keep my spirits up. He and Christopher had been my saviours, and I owed it to them to pull myself together and get back to some sort of normality.

Christmas was coming, and I was looking forward to spending some peaceful, happy time with my family. The house was twinkling with decorations when the phone rang, on 12 December 2008. It was Gerry, bearing news of another death in the Murphy family. This time it was my father. Peter Murphy senior had died of ill health at the age of eighty-two, his bid for a judicial review still outstanding. He had tortured me to his dying day.

I broke down in tears when I told Simon and Christopher. ‘He never served one day behind bars,’ I sobbed. ‘How can this happen?’ The three of us just crumbled. I felt robbed of justice, and Simon and Christopher were seething with anger.

My faith helped me survive. I do believe in God, because I don’t know how I could possibly have survived that house of horrors alone. I marvel every day at how lucky I am to have survived my childhood, while Martin, Michael and Theresa didn’t.

My son Christopher is twenty-two now, and I am very proud to say he is a happy, loving and capable man. My other son is twenty-eight-years-old.

Simon’s love keeps me going in my darkest moments. He makes me smile and laugh, and I feel so blessed. I love to walk in the countryside with my dogs, read books and sit in my garden when the sun shines.

I’m very proud to have written this book. It has helped me enormously, and I can finally rest.

I sleep at night, knowing I did everything I possibly could to tell the truth and get justice for Noleen.

Many thanks to my childhood friends from Dalkey, without whom I wonder if I would have made it through my teenage years. There are too many to mention, but a special thanks to Maria O’Gorman, Michelle Hanlon, Marie Farrell, and Sheila MacGowan, and their families. To Collie and Anthony Howard, I wish you peace wherever you are. To Catherine and Alan. To Brian O’Farrell and Kevin Harran, Dave and Bridget, Christian and Elena. To Geraldine Green, Maria Kelly Whelan and Bernice Farrell. To Margot Hutton. To Shane Brien and Uinsionn Macdubhgaill, the two boys who found my daughter’s body in April 1973, when they were only eleven years old. To my friends from the Tech in Dun Laoghaire, and to the staff at the old Technical College in Dun Laoghaire. To my friends in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. To the teachers at Newark and Sherwood Secretarial School for accepting me and for educating me and, in particular, thanks to Sue Bird. To Dr Elisabeth Noble and Dr Saffman from the Eastfield Surgery. To Dr Pauline Graham at Scarborough Hospital. To my legal team, Gerry Dunne and John O’Brien, and all the staff at O’Brien Dunne Solicitors. To Kieron Wood (BL) Michael Forde (SC) And special thanks to the many barristers and solicitors who looked at my case over the years in an effort to help me. To Pol O’Murchu, Felix McEnroy, James Nugent, Mary Ellen Ring and Paul McDermott. To Alan Shatter, TD and lawyer. To Albert Owen MP/AS and the staff at his local office, who treated me with respect and sensitivity, a big thank you for sticking with me, and to your secretary at the Houses of Parliament, Gerwyn Jones. To Colm O’Gorman and Deirdre Fitzpatrick and the staff at OneinFour. To Barry Cummins (RTE), Brighid McLaughlin (
Sunday Independent
) and to all the people who supported me both in the community of Dalkey and the surrounding areas, to those who sent me flowers, cards, letters, and emails; a big thank you from my family and I. To Dr Dawn Henderson. To Nona and Jodie. To the coroner Brian Farrell, thank you for being sensitive to my loss. To the coroner Kieran Gerathy and his secretary Ciara, thank you for doing your job. To Fr Aquinas Duffy and David Linehan from Missing Persons for the support you gave me when my brother Michael was missing, and for your much needed advice and experience. To Fiona Neary Rape Crisis Centre Ireland and to the staff at our local Rape Crisis Centre who supported Simon and I through what was a very difficult time. To Rachel Murphy, my co-writer, thank you for having the patience of a saint and for not pushing me, and most of all for understanding. To the staff at Headline Publishing, in particular Carly Cook and the staff at Hachette Ireland, and my agent Jonathan Conway. And of course to my husband Simon and my son Christopher* - what can I say? It would take a million years to describe the love and loyalty you have both shown me. You taught me how to give and receive love, and how to smile and to learn to trust. The first thing I do each morning when I wake is thank God for both of you.

Cynthia can be contacted through her solicitor at:

Cynthia Owen

c/o Gerry Dunne

O’Brien Dunne Solicitors

6 Upper Fitzwilliam Street

Dublin 2

Dear Gerry, Kieron and Michael,

Many times I have tried to tell you how grateful I am for what you have done for me. So many times I have tried to write it all down but I begin to cry because words cannot describe how I feel about what you have all done.

How can I find the words to say thank you to three men who gave their time so freely, who stood by me so loyally and trusted me so completely? What do I say to three men who didn’t mind walking on a journey with a damaged soul and who gave me strength and picked me up every time I fell?