00:00:03
[theme music] NARRATOR: A fatal fall
at a newlyweds home in Ireland. A young woman's life cut
short just six months
00:00:24
after getting married. - She was a beautiful,
caring person. And what happened was
absolutely shocking.
00:00:31
NARRATOR: Was it simply
a tragic accident? - They find Mary
at the foot of the stairs.
00:00:36
She's covered
with a heavy duvet and she's bleeding from
her nose and mouth.
00:00:41
NARRATOR: Or murder? MARIE CASSIDY: Within minutes
of actually seeing Mary's body,
00:00:46
I knew there was
something wrong here. PAT MARRY: I said, "you
may sharpen your pencil.
00:00:50
We have a murder
investigation." [theme music] AMBER HAQUE: Mary
Gough was born
00:01:23
on the 22nd of December, 1973,
in Drogheda in County Louth. She was born to a large
Catholic family
00:01:32
of five children. Her parents were
Marie and James, and Mary was the only
daughter of the family,
00:01:39
and she was described
as laid back, independent, and really friendly, and the
heart and soul of the family.
00:01:48
NARRATOR: When Mary
was growing up, Pat Marry was a local police
officer who would later get
00:01:53
to know Mary's family well. - Mary's family
were all very close. Her father had died
when she was very young,
00:02:01
and I guess the fact that
she lost her dad brought the family even closer. She shone as a person who had a
degree of love and compassion,
00:02:13
was just a downright
lovely person. And her mother,
Marie, would say that she was her best friend.
00:02:22
She went to the local
secondary school, and she had the aspirations
of all young women of her age.
00:02:29
She wanted to meet someone,
get married, have children, raise a family, do the things
that most normal people
00:02:34
would like to do. NARRATOR: In her
late teens, Mary met a man who she wanted
to spend the rest of her
00:02:41
life with. - In the early 1990s,
when Mary left school, she got a job in a pub
called the Huntsman,
00:02:47
and it was there that she met
a man called Colin Whelan. Colin was a guy from
a similar area to Mary,
00:02:53
and he was slightly
older than her. - She was 19 years
old at the time, and it became very apparent
early on that the two of them
00:03:01
hit it off and they
were quite close. He was very amenable
to Mary's friends,
00:03:08
and he was a good-looking guy. He was over 6-foot. He was a good catch, let's say.
00:03:15
Colin was an impressive
individual. He went to Dundalk
Institute of Technology, and there he acquired
a qualification
00:03:25
in computer science. And after that,
he acquired a job in Irish Permanent
Building Society
00:03:32
to do programming for them. NARRATOR: Mary's career at a
law firm was also taking off
00:03:39
and the future looked
bright for Colin and Mary. But in the mid 1990s,
their relationship
00:03:46
hit a sudden rough patch. - In 1995, Colin broke up
for a period of time with Mary.
00:03:54
She was heartbroken
and confided in her mother and she really was devastated. And Colin at that stage said
he wanted to break it off.
00:04:02
He didn't want
to see her again. But as things progressed,
they got back together again
00:04:08
and it appeared to everybody
and Mary's family and Colin's family that
the relationship was
00:04:15
going in the right direction. And he proposed in 1998
for them to get married. - --to do it, Mary, and then
we'll get you sorted.
00:04:25
AMBER HAQUE: On the 9th
of September in 2000, Mary and Colin were married. On the day, Mary
was quite nervous,
00:04:32
but she was comforted
by her older brother, who walked her down the aisle. The newlyweds quickly
settled into married life.
00:04:40
They moved into an area
called Balbriggan. It's 20 miles north of Dublin. And there, they renovated
a new house together.
00:04:46
NARRATOR: Newlyweds
Mary and Colin had a lot to look forward to as
they embarked on their new
00:04:52
life together. But just six months
after their wedding, at 12:16 AM on March
1, 2001, an emergency
00:05:02
call was made by Colin. [ambulance siren wailing] AMBER HAQUE: 20 minutes
later, the paramedics
00:05:41
and the fire brigade arrived. They find Mary
at the foot of the stairs. She's covered
with a heavy duvet
00:05:48
and she's bleeding from
her nose and mouth. Colin Whelan was stood over
his wife's body in a daze.
00:05:56
He was asking paramedics,
"is Mary dead or alive?" NARRATOR: As first
responders tended to Mary,
00:06:02
they asked Colin
what had happened. AMBER HAQUE: Colin
claimed that Mary's sleeve
00:06:08
from her dressing
gown must have got caught on the banister, and
that's what caused her to fall,
00:06:13
because there was a tear
on the sleeve area. The paramedics found
Mary in cardiac arrest.
00:06:18
They began CPR on her
in the ambulance as they rushed her towards
Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
00:06:25
NARRATOR: Colin
followed the ambulance. And after Mary's family were
informed of her accident,
00:06:31
they rushed to the hospital
to be with their daughter. [tense music] - But when they arrived
at the hospital,
00:06:39
they were told that the doctors
could do nothing more and Mary was pronounced dead.
00:06:48
NARRATOR: As Colin
and Mary's family processed the devastating news of
27-year-old Mary Gough's tragic
00:06:55
fatal fall, the police, known
in Ireland as the "Garda," were notified of her passing.
00:07:04
At the time, Pat Marry
was a Detective Sergeant in nearby Balbriggan. Following standard
procedure for all
00:07:11
of a sudden deaths
in Ireland, he was instructed to investigate
how Mary had died.
00:07:18
PAT MARRY: At this
stage, Colin Whelan had made it known that
it was only himself and
00:07:22
his wife that
were in the house, and she fell down the stairs. NARRATOR: Colin was then
interviewed as a witness
00:07:29
to explain exactly
what had happened. - Colin relayed
to the Garda in a statement
00:07:36
that he was in,
watching the TV. His wife had gone
up to have a shower. After a period of time, he
heard thump, thump, thump.
00:07:45
And he opened
the sitting room door and there on the bottom
of the stairs was Mary
00:07:50
and she was unresponsive. NARRATOR: Colin's
witness statement suggested Mary's
death was the result
00:07:57
of a tragic accidental fall. But after speaking to staff
at the hospital where Mary was pronounced
dead, officers
00:08:06
had more questions for Colin. PAT MARRY:
At Beaumont Hospital, Nurse Galvin went over
to sympathize with Colin
00:08:13
and she noticed his
shirt opened and she could see scratch marks. And Superintendent
Thomas Gallagher,
00:08:21
a very experienced
detective, spoke with Colin and he was asked
what were they. And he tried to brush
them away and he said,
00:08:29
"oh, when she
flailed out of me, she must have scratched me." But that's the first
time he ever
00:08:34
said that, because that was
never an issue on the 999 call he had made. He had told her that
she wasn't breathing,
00:08:41
she was unresponsive. But he changed his story when
he saw the scratch marks. NARRATOR: As a result
of the unusual marks on Colin,
00:08:51
a postmortem was ordered
to verify Mary's cause of death and their home
was cordoned off.
00:08:58
- Given what Nurse
Galvin had seen and what Tom Gallagher,
the Superintendent, had witnessed
the scratches on him,
00:09:05
he thought it best that
the house should be preserved on the basis that if Colin
Sweeney's story was not true,
00:09:13
at least they were able
to have their house examined. [tense music] NARRATOR: After Mary Gough's
fatal fall down the stairs
00:09:23
at the home she shared
with husband Colin Whelan, police continued to investigate
whether her death
00:09:29
was an accident
as Colin had claimed. As part of procedure,
they carried out a background check on Colin.
00:09:38
- He was a normal guy. A good job, well
thought of in work. And there was nothing in
Colin's past that anyone should
00:09:47
be concerned about in his
relationship with Mary as far as her family were
concerned and his family.
00:09:53
They had a perfect marriage. They were very happy together. NARRATOR: The day
after Mary died,
00:10:00
a state pathologist carried out
the postmortem on Mary's body. MARIE CASSIDY:
I'm Marie Cassidy,
00:10:07
and I was a forensic
pathologist on call when Mary Gough died. I was brought in because
if there was something
00:10:15
unusual about her death,
the state pathology department would be asked to investigate.
00:10:21
Usually in the first instance
when I hear about a death, there's very little
information available.
00:10:26
And I don't seek
information because I would rather go
in and make up my own mind
00:10:31
about what I think happened. Within minutes of actually
seeing Mary's body, I knew there was
something far wrong here.
00:10:39
This wasn't
an accidental death. This wasn't a death following
a simple fall down the stairs.
00:10:44
I didn't see the normal
bumps and scrapes on the arms and the legs
I would have
00:10:49
expected in the circumstances. What I did notice was that
Mary's face was discolored.
00:10:55
Normally, after death,
the face is rather pale. Mary's face was not pale. Mary's face was
a blue purple color.
00:11:02
When I looked
at the neck, I could see that there was a distinct
line from the neck down.
00:11:08
The skin was the pale color I
would normally have expected. Mid-deck upwards, there was
this purple blue discoloration
00:11:16
of the skin, and that was
immediately concerning. She had small
pinpoint hemorrhages.
00:11:22
We call these
particular hemorrhages, and I noticed them
in and around the eyes.
00:11:26
I then proceeded to do
a neck dissection. This is a very
detailed examination, and I examined the neck
layer by layer.
00:11:34
And then I get
to the skeleton of the neck. And that's your Adam's
apple, the larynx.
00:11:41
But it was the bone above
that, the hyoid bone I found was broken. Injuries to the neck
structures are not
00:11:49
common in accidental
falls downstairs because you've got
a tumbling motion, and therefore the neck is
what we call a protected area.
00:11:59
It does happen. But if you've only got
a neck injury in isolation, it doesn't quite
make sense about this
00:12:06
being a fall downstairs. Once I found the damage
to the hyoid bone and taking that with the marker
across the neck, discoloration
00:12:16
of the face, the small
pinpoint hemorrhages in and around the eyes,
this then confirmed
00:12:21
my suspicion that Mary's
neck had been compressed. And at that stage, I was quite
firm in that this was a case
00:12:31
of ligature strangulation. And Mary had been murdered. NARRATOR: It was
a shocking discovery
00:12:38
that dramatically changed the
course of their investigation. PAT MARRY: Marie Cassidy
came into the office to me,
00:12:45
and she says "this
girl was murdered. It's not a tragic
fall down the stairs."
00:12:50
And I was a little bit
taken aback because I wasn't expecting that. And she said she's been
asphyxiated by strangulation
00:12:57
by way of ligature. I said to her, how sure
are you about this. And probably a bit cheeky
of me asking like, because I
00:13:04
wasn't expecting that. She says, I'm 110% sure. Marie Cassidy was quite
solid in her findings.
00:13:12
I got on to my superintendent
and my very words to him were, I said, "you may
sharpen your pencil.
00:13:18
We have a murder
investigation." - Strangulation is actually a
very personal method of murder.
00:13:25
And that's because it
often involves looking someone directly
in the face as you kill them.
00:13:31
And on top of that,
it actually takes quite a long time for someone
to pass away from asphyxiation.
00:13:36
Most commonly then you
see asphyxiation murders in relation to either anger
and rage-based murders,
00:13:44
or sexually-motivated murders. PAT MARRY: The Gough
family had to be told that it was a murder.
00:13:50
We could see that there
were a very close family and that they were very, very
close to Colin Whelan and
00:13:56
his family. The next day, Mary's brother
came down to the station with his partner
and we told him, look,
00:14:03
we're treating
this as a murder. Mary was murdered. She was strangled, and it's
now a murder investigation.
00:14:10
Colin was the only
person in the house at the time with Mary, so it
leaves a finger of suspicion
00:14:16
on Colin. They could not believe
what we were saying. We asked them not to engage
with Colin Whelan,
00:14:22
and not to do anything foolish. NARRATOR: Until Colin was made
a suspect in Mary's death,
00:14:28
her family had seen
nothing to suggest that he was capable of
committing such a horrific act.
00:14:36
HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND: From an
outsider's perspective, looking at Colin and Mary's
relationship,
00:14:40
there might not be any
immediate red flags or concerns about his
behavior or the state
00:14:46
of their relationship,
or his likelihood to go on to harm her, to kill her. But that doesn't mean
that there's not stuff
00:14:53
going on behind the scenes. There might still have been
escalations of behavior that the general public
are just not aware of.
00:15:02
NARRATOR: Following
the pathologist's findings, investigators asked
Colin about his movements
00:15:08
on the day of Mary's death. He told them that it was
a normal working day, except that he went to a luxury
department store around midday.
00:15:18
PAT MARRY: Colin, during
lunch hour at work, had purchased a bronze
ornament for his wife Mary, and
00:15:26
the lady who served
him remembered him because of him saying
he loved his wife and he wanted to surprise
her and all that, you know.
00:15:32
And she thought
that was very nice. NARRATOR: Colin was also
asked about his whereabouts
00:15:38
after work. PAT MARRY: He said, "look,
I came home from work." He changed and went out
again to go to the gym.
00:15:44
He was there for an hour,
returned home again. Himself and Mary were there. They had some dinner.
00:15:50
NARRATOR: Officers confirmed
Colin's claims by checking his home security alarm logs.
00:15:55
And with a clean
criminal record, there was nothing to suggest
any suspicious behavior
00:16:00
by Colin in the lead
up to Mary's death. - Someone escalating
from having no criminal behavior in their
past, suddenly all the way
00:16:10
up to murder can happen. It really depends on the motive
behind the murder. Often, though, what you see
in cases of domestic homicide
00:16:17
like this appears
to be is there is normally a pattern
of escalation of behaviors
00:16:23
before the moment of murder. But that doesn't
necessarily mean that anyone's been
apprehended or
00:16:29
any criminal charges
have been brought for those prior behaviors. And a lot of the time, things
that we see as red flags or
00:16:36
issues or concerns
from someone are a lot easier to see
in retrospect than they are in the moment.
00:16:45
NARRATOR: Within
days of Mary's death, her funeral service took place. - All the Gardas that were
involved in the investigation
00:16:54
attended to show
their support for the family, and also to see the reaction
of Colin Whelan and his family.
00:17:02
Colin was acting
as a cold individual. He was a big man. He was 6-foot 5". He was a well-built
man, but he was cold.
00:17:09
He had no emotion in his face. He had no tears in his eyes. He didn't put his
hands up to his face.
00:17:14
He didn't show any emotion that
he was going to bury his wife. None whatsoever.
00:17:21
- Colin appearing
very emotionally withdrawn at the funeral
isn't inherently a red flag.
00:17:27
Everyone responds to trauma
and loss and grief in very different ways. Some people withdraw
into themselves, and
00:17:34
so whilst it might not look how
everyone would expect someone to present at a funeral.
00:17:41
It doesn't necessarily
indicate anything sinister in and of itself. The investigation into Colin
Whelan was well underway,
00:17:51
but the police at this point
were yet to establish a motive. - Every murder
has a motive, and
00:17:58
you have to find that motive. Because if you find the motive,
it will lead you to the killer.
00:18:03
Was Colin having an affair? Was he trying to get
rid of his wife? Was there financial
difficulties?
00:18:11
That's what we
needed to determine. NARRATOR: Investigators
decided to search for clues
00:18:16
on Colin's computers. PAT MARRY: It was
decided that it would be prudent to seize
his computers and view them,
00:18:25
to see if there was anything
on it of evidential value. His own personal computer
we took from his house.
00:18:33
There was nothing on it. It appeared to have
been wiped, and there was nothing
of evidential value
00:18:37
accruing from that computer. - But when investigators turned
to Colin's work computers,
00:18:44
they found he didn't realize
that his searches had been saved to an external server.
00:18:50
PAT MARRY: They had what they
called a double proxy server. I never heard of that before.
00:18:54
I didn't even know what it was. And they said, we
have a server that captures absolutely everything
that any of our employees
00:19:00
do on a daily basis. So I said, "you're telling
me anything that he looked
00:19:04
up or done would be saved?" "Yes." So I said, "happy days."
00:19:10
NARRATOR: But getting
to Colin's specific computer activity meant finding a way to
navigate through months of data
00:19:17
covering 60 other employees. - They decided that they would
devise a program and key it
00:19:24
into the logs
and look for key words like murder or strangulation
or that type of thing.
00:19:30
And that's exactly
what they did. AMBER HAQUE: What the police
found was chilling.
00:19:34
Colin Whelan had been searching
terms like asphyxiation, how to block a windpipe,
and how long does
00:19:42
it take to die from choking. PAT MARRY: What
was sickening to me is that he was looking up
asphyxiation and strangulation
00:19:51
before he got married. So he had this
intention, obviously, before he got
married and played
00:19:56
out the six months of marriage
like the perfect husband and then killed her. It brought it home to me.
00:20:05
There was no doubt
in my mind at that stage that Colin Whelan had
strangled his wife,
00:20:10
and he was the murderer,
and that he had researched how to do it
and to make it look like a fall
00:20:15
down the stairs. It was shocking, really. - In premeditated murders, it
is fairly common for someone
00:20:23
to do research before
committing the act, especially if they are
planning to try and get away
00:20:28
with it because they're
often looking at different potential murder
methods, different ways
00:20:34
to maybe stage a scene or to
make it look like an accident. And all of that's
very intentional
00:20:39
for them trying
to be organized, trying to get away with it. NARRATOR: Police
also discovered
00:20:46
that Colin took an unhealthy
interest in serial killers. PAT MARRY: What was hugely
relevant was his research
00:20:54
into Henry Louis Wallace,
because the nine women he killed and eventually
was caught for,
00:21:01
he had strangled them
but never left a ligature mark. - Copycat murders
are relatively rare,
00:21:07
but they are well-documented
in criminology. They are understood
as a phenomenon.
00:21:12
What you often see
in copycat killers is that they are replicating
the behavior of that offender,
00:21:18
perhaps because they share
an ideology with them, or perhaps actually
because they
00:21:23
have a sense of grandiosity
and they think they can do the same act, but better.
00:21:28
So you have to wonder,
in the case of Colin, whether he looked at this case,
he saw the method by which
00:21:36
these murders had
occurred, and he tried to replicate
them thinking that he could do it better.
00:21:41
- Our access to his computer
spelt out to us this cold-blooded
and methodical individual
00:21:50
who used the internet
to follow his plan. But we still had
not established at that stage what the motive
was for killing his wife.
00:22:01
[tense music] NARRATOR: After
investigators established that Mary Gough died from
ligature strangulation,
00:22:10
her husband Colin, who
had claimed she fell down the stairs, became the prime
suspect as detectives
00:22:17
continued to search
for a motive. - Colin has said
it was only him and her in the house
at the time,
00:22:26
and Colin had given up
his keys to the house. So we searched his house. NARRATOR: As a forensic
team scoured
00:22:34
Colin and Mary's
marital home for clues, they came across vital evidence
in the couple's bedroom.
00:22:42
- The blood
staining on the wall between the en suite
and the main door was extremely evident.
00:22:49
When you're being
strangled, blood vessels break
in your nose and they emit blood in a mist format.
00:22:56
And they found that
pattern on the wallpaper. So they knew something had
happened in the bedroom
00:23:02
and it was violent. NARRATOR: Their discovery
contradicted Colin's claim that Mary had
died after falling
00:23:09
down the stairs on her own. - This is a case
of primary scene staging. So this is where someone
has staged the crime scene
00:23:17
specifically with the intention
of misleading the police investigation, because Colin
has tried to set this
00:23:23
up to look like an accident. But now the evidence is
showing that actually there was some sort
of confrontation
00:23:29
at the top of the stairs. The blood spatter
analysis is not aligning with Colin's tale of events.
00:23:37
NARRATOR: Investigators
also discovered a vital clue in the duvet
Mary was wrapped
00:23:41
in when emergency services
first arrived on the scene following Colin's call.
00:23:48
- Wrapped up in the duvet
was a yellow towel and the yellow towel had
blood staining on it, which
00:23:53
turned out to be Mary's blood. And it was a light
bulb moment because it sparked a thought of me
about Henry Louis Wallace.
00:24:02
And at every scene
of his murders, there was a towel involved. And the fact that he had
looked up and researched him,
00:24:09
I believe this towel
was involved in some way in the murder of Mary Gough. NARRATOR: Marie Cassidy, the
state pathologist who had first
00:24:19
found evidence
of ligature strangulation, also revisited the scene
to look for more clues.
00:24:27
- Where's the ligature? What had been tied
around Mary's neck? When I went up the stairs,
we had a look around,
00:24:34
and in the bedroom there was
nothing very much lying about. But there was a dressing
gown hanging behind the door.
00:24:42
The belt was in place. It was through
the loops, but it looked as if it had been
stretched or something,
00:24:47
and there was some
staining on it. And I immediately brought
it to their attention.
00:24:51
And I said, well, that could
have been used to strangle her. NARRATOR: The belt was sent
to the forensic science
00:24:58
laboratory for testing. - They found Mary's
blood on the belt. Given that the ligature
was found in the bedroom
00:25:11
and Mary was found
at the bottom of the stairs, I wondered whether or not she
had been strangled upstairs
00:25:19
and then manhandled downstairs. She'd been literally
dragged down to the bottom of the stairs
and then left in a heap.
00:25:26
NARRATOR: It was
further evidence that Mary had been
murdered, most likely by her husband, Colin Whelan.
00:25:35
- Friends and family
were in shock that Colin was in the frame
for Mary's murder,
00:25:40
but Mary's mom Marie
said that, on reflection, there had been a change
in her behavior
00:25:45
in the lead up to this. And looking back
as well, Mary's family said that on her wedding day
she just didn't look happy.
00:25:53
PAT MARRY: Her mother said
to me that she just felt there was something not right.
00:25:57
There was something
amiss at the wedding. She just couldn't
put her finger on it,
00:26:00
but Mary wasn't happy
and things weren't right. - When the couple came
back from their honeymoon,
00:26:06
her mom noticed that
Mary was just different. She stopped getting
her nails done
00:26:11
and wearing certain
clothes because she said that Colin didn't like it. PAT MARRY: Her mother says she
didn't wear her perfume that
00:26:17
she loved, and she said, "oh,
Colin doesn't like that perfume and I don't wear it anymore."
00:26:21
AMBER HAQUE: Mary also stopped
even inviting her mom around. And before this, Marie had
practically lived in the house.
00:26:27
She had her own bedroom there. Yet something changed. And the week before she died,
Mary's mom said that she
00:26:33
was calling her every night. It's as if she wanted
to tell her something. HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND: All
of this strikes as someone
00:26:40
who's potentially
in a coercive, controlling relationship
because now they're married.
00:26:47
Now he has an element
of not only legal but sort of moral control over her. Manipulators and controlling
individuals in relationships
00:26:57
do this on purpose. They do this to isolate
their victim, and that way they
have more control,
00:27:04
more say, over their life. And so for someone who is
seeking that level of ownership
00:27:11
over another human
being, these are very methodical
steps that occur with that exact intention.
00:27:18
NARRATOR: Investigators still
wanted to establish a motive, so they turned
their attention back
00:27:23
to Colin's digital footprint. - Further searches of Collins
computer revealed that he had
00:27:31
actually set up a website
and was managing this website called extramaritalaffairs.com
and he was
00:27:38
portraying himself
as single and actively looking for a relationship. Police then found
through this search
00:27:45
that Colin had met
a woman in Wales, and they were having
an online affair. PAT MARRY: Through
communication, through emails,
00:27:53
they had sent
a total of something like 123 greeting cards
between each other. She had nicknamed him "Fuzzy
Bear," and he nicknamed
00:28:02
her the "Little Welsh Rabbit." She was wanting to come
over and meet him
00:28:06
because she had fallen
in love with him and was in love with him as a
result of this cyber affair.
00:28:12
HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND:
Colin going to the extent to set up a whole
website just to enable
00:28:17
an extramarital
online affair really goes to show the level
of secrecy that he's hiding.
00:28:24
The ability that he
clearly has to be able to manipulate
those in his life because he's presenting
as this loving,
00:28:31
doting husband externally. But the reality of his behavior
is so far removed from that.
00:28:38
And I think this
is him actually just testing the limits
of what he can get away with.
00:28:45
NARRATOR: With the assistance
of local police, detectives decided to visit
his online girlfriend in Wales.
00:28:52
- The Welsh policeman said,
"I have Irish police here. They want to speak to you and
they want to talk to you about
00:28:57
a guy called Colin Whelan." "Oh, Colin. Yeah, I haven't heard about
him in a couple of days.
00:29:01
I wonder, is he all right?" We said, "he's fine. His wife died."
"Oh, I know that.
00:29:05
His wife died. He told me she was killed
in a car accident in 1997." And I says, "no.
00:29:12
His wife died a week ago. And Colin is the suspect
for murdering her." And with that, she just
collapsed on the ground
00:29:22
like, you know. NARRATOR: Continuing their
search for digital evidence, detectives found
another potential motive
00:29:31
for Colin to have killed Mary. - An insurance policy document
was found, and it showed that,
00:29:39
initially, he had taken
out a policy on himself and Mary on the 15th of March,
2000, for the value
00:29:45
of 200,000 pounds. But two months after
that, he upped the policy to 400,000 pounds, which
was in excess of anything
00:29:56
that was reasonable. The insurance policy
were taken out at a time after they had been engaged
and before they got married.
00:30:04
And when you look
at his internet history, going back before they married,
where he was looking up
00:30:10
asphyxiation and strangulation,
he obviously had it in his mind at that stage he was
going to kill her
00:30:16
and he was going to cash in. Also, the internet
history showed he was looking at expensive
cars, holidays abroad.
00:30:25
He was looking at the high
life if he got this money. So there is no
doubt in our mind
00:30:30
he wanted to kill his
wife for that money. It was definitely the big
jigsaw piece that fitted in.
00:30:38
And to say, well, look,
this is the motive. It was financial greed. We had him bang to rights.
00:30:44
We were quite happy. We had a very,
very strong case. NARRATOR: On April 10, 2001,
police drove to Colin's house.
00:30:54
- In the presence
of his father, I arrested him
on the suspicion of the murder of his wife, Mary.
00:31:00
NARRATOR: Colin
Whelan was taken to Balbriggan Police
Station, where the next day
00:31:05
he was questioned about
the murder of his wife. - Colin didn't say anything.
00:31:10
He kept his mouth shut. Now we asked him, "well, can
you explain how she ended
00:31:15
up being strangled to death?" And he said, "I can't." We asked him, "were
you ashamed that
00:31:20
you have killed your wife?" Like, "have you
anything to say?" And he broke down and he cried.
00:31:24
But he said, "no comment." He was psychopathic. That's the way I
would look at it.
00:31:28
He believed he was smarter
and better than us, but we were putting questions
to him that were hard-hitting.
00:31:35
If he sat there and said
nothing, we couldn't care less. We had the ace
card at that stage.
00:31:40
NARRATOR: Despite Colin
invoking his right not to comment, on April 11,
2001, police officially
00:31:47
charged Colin Whelan with
the murder of his wife, but he would have to wait over
two years to appear in court.
00:31:56
- A trial date was set
for October 13, 2003. In Ireland, it's
common to grant
00:32:01
bail when there can be
long delays, sometimes up to two years,
for murder trials,
00:32:06
provided the accused
isn't a flight risk and won't interfere
with the prosecution.
00:32:11
Colin Whelan had
strict bail conditions. He had to sign in every day
at Balbriggan Garda Station.
00:32:17
He had to live
with his family and his family had to pay
a significant bail bond.
00:32:22
NARRATOR: For two
years, Colin Whelan abided by his strict
bail conditions, but seven months before
he was due to stand trial,
00:32:30
everything changed. - In March 2003, his
family came to the station to report Colin missing.
00:32:39
So we had to establish
where is he. The family feared the worst
and his car was missing.
00:32:47
And we had to establish
where his car was and we had to look for him. NARRATOR: Colin's disappearance
sparked a nationwide manhunt,
00:32:55
and on March 12, 2003,
police had a breakthrough on the east coast of Ireland. - The police in Howth had been
patrolling Howth Head, which
00:33:07
is a known area for people
who commit suicide, and they observed a car
there with keys in it.
00:33:14
And they thought
it very suspicious and they contacted
us and I went up immediately to Howth Head.
00:33:22
I looked at the car
and the window was down on the passenger side. You could clearly see
an empty bottle of gin.
00:33:29
NARRATOR: With no
idea where Colin was, police turned to his cell phone
activity to look for clues.
00:33:37
- His last phone call,
we could establish, was to the Samaritans,
which would be consistent
00:33:44
with someone, maybe
in a mental state of disorder, that they would go and throw
themselves over the cliffs.
00:33:50
NARRATOR: With
evidence that Colin might have ended his life
at the well-known suicide spot,
00:33:55
detectives triggered
a search for his body. - We had a land and sea
search carried out
00:34:02
by the Irish Coast Guard
to see if his remains were on the cliffs or in the sea.
00:34:09
Those searches were negative. NARRATOR: Detectives
soon suspected that Colin had staged
the scene to suggest
00:34:17
that he was upset, drunk,
and had taken his own life. PAT MARRY: I said
to myself, "this is typical
00:34:24
Colin Whelan controlling." He's no more throwing
himself off the cliff than the man in the moon.
00:34:31
And wherever he is, I don't
know but I'm going to find him. - I think that this
scene staging really
00:34:37
goes to actually show Colin's
narcissistic tendencies, because this is someone
who thinks that he's
00:34:44
so intelligent, he
can outsmart the law, he can think of every
preconceived idea and question
00:34:51
and answer them
by setting up this scene. But actually, what
he's not accounted
00:34:56
for is that the perfect
nature of the scene actually raises
questions in itself.
00:35:04
NARRATOR: With Colin Whelan
now a fugitive on the run, Irish detectives launched
an international manhunt.
00:35:10
- When someone like
this has vanished, you have to engage
Interpol and Europol to circulate the details
of Colin Whelan
00:35:20
and what he's wanted for. And you have to step back
and let that take its course.
00:35:26
It may take a short time, it
may take a very long time, but you can do no
more than that.
00:35:32
NARRATOR: One year
on, Colin Whelan continued to evade justice. But in July 2004, around 16
months after he disappeared,
00:35:42
investigators
received a tip off. - This was an unusual
turn of events. NARRATOR: Colin had been
spotted over 1,000 miles away
00:35:52
in the glamorous vacation town
of Portals Nous on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
00:35:59
- He was working in a bar. The bar that he
was working in was for customers who had bought
yachts of 1+ million pounds.
00:36:09
So there wasn't going
to be too many people from Balbriggan down
wandering around there
00:36:14
parking their yacht like so. He felt relatively
safe working there. NARRATOR: But Colin's identity
was not as well protected
00:36:22
as he thought it was. PAT MARRY: A lady,
a holidaymaker just happened to walk
into the bar, and
00:36:30
she engaged with Colin Whelan
while she was in the pub and he told her his
name was Cian Sweeney.
00:36:37
And he gave her his
name and wrote it down, signed it on the back
of a business card for the pub
00:36:43
and said you'll get me here. When she returns
to Ireland, the Gough family put in the papers the story
about Colin Whelan
00:36:53
that he's missing for so long,
had anybody seen him. And a picture of him. And she saw it,
and she says, "Jesus,
00:37:00
that's Cian Sweeney, that's
the guy I was talking to. That's him."
00:37:03
And she contacted
the station and he was put in contact with her. She says that's the card he
gave me, and he signed it.
00:37:09
I took a statement off her. I went back and compared it
with Colin Whelan's signature
00:37:15
on the statement he made
and the writing to me, and anyone who looked
it, was the same.
00:37:20
So I said, this is our man
and we needed to get him. NARRATOR: 16 months after
Colin Whelan went on the run
00:37:31
from Irish police
wanted for the murder of his wife Mary Gough,
after first claiming
00:37:37
that she had a fatal
fall down the stairs, he had finally been located. And Spanish police were
poised to arrest him on behalf
00:37:46
of the Irish authorities. - On July the 10th
in 2004, at 10:30 PM, the Spanish civil
guard raided the bar
00:37:55
where Colin was working. - He was arrested
on the warrant and he said, "you
have the wrong guy.
00:38:00
My name is Cian Sweeney. You have the wrong guy." And they took him into custody
and took his fingerprints.
00:38:06
And they said, "no,
you're Colin Whelan, your fingerprints match."
00:38:10
And he just put his
hands up and he says, "right, I'm Colin Whelan."
00:38:14
NARRATOR: News of Colin's
high-profile arrest spread quickly to Mary's
family back home in Ireland.
00:38:21
- When Mary's family
were told, they were shocked but so relieved. They broke down
in tears on the phone.
00:38:28
Colin Whelan was
finally being brought back from Spain to face justice
for what he did to Mary.
00:38:35
NARRATOR: Detective Pat Marry
traveled to Spain to bring Colin Whelan back to Ireland.
00:38:42
PAT MARRY: I flew out
to Madrid to bring him back. I went down
to the cell area and
00:38:47
about halfway down I
looked into the right and there was Colin,
standing there on his own,
00:38:52
and he had grown
a beard at this stage. Now, I looked at him
and he looked at me.
00:38:56
Our glances together
spelled it out. He knew he was caught
and I knew I caught him.
00:39:02
He was handcuffed and put
on the plane and I was chatting
to him, and he says, "you know, you're very lucky."
00:39:08
And I says, "why?" He said, "another week
I was gone to Singapore
00:39:11
and you would never get me." - Whelan saying
to the detective, you know, one more week
and I'd have been in Singapore.
00:39:18
I think it kind of shows
that he's seeing this as a bit of a game. It's almost like he's
trying to flex, you know,
00:39:24
that this was
a master plan, and he would have gotten away
with it if it wasn't for you
00:39:29
and those meddling kids. You know, it's
a bit gamified, and it's clearly someone not taking
the severity of their actions
00:39:38
seriously, and certainly
not showing any remorse for the death of Mary. NARRATOR: On April
11, 2005, four years
00:39:47
after Mary Gough's
murder, Colin stood trial at Dublin's
Central Criminal Court
00:39:52
in one of the most
publicized trials in Irish criminal history. PAT MARRY: At the beginning
of that trial,
00:39:59
and before any
jury were called, he was arraigned by the court
clerk, who read out the charge.
00:40:05
He was asked, "did you, Colin
Whelan, on the 1st of March, killed Mary Gough?"
00:40:11
and he looked round at me,
and he just looked at me for a second or two, and he
looked back up at the judge
00:40:16
and he said, "guilty." NARRATOR: Colin Whelan's
admission of guilt
00:40:21
stunned the packed courtroom. - The Gough family
were very happy. They were ecstatic.
00:40:28
But I looked around at his
family, the Whelan family. They were gobsmacked. They could not believe
what they heard.
00:40:38
They were convinced that their
Colin Whelan was innocent. - There's a few reasons
that Colin Whelan
00:40:45
might be pleading guilty. It might be because he wants
the shock and the attention
00:40:50
that this is going to give
saying guilty at this moment. It might be because he knows
that by entering a guilty plea,
00:40:57
you're more likely to get
a slightly reduced sentence because you're saving
the court a trial.
00:41:02
But it also might
be simply because he knows the evidence is
too strong against him,
00:41:06
and there's no way out. PAT MARRY: Colin plead
guilty, in my mind, I have no doubt about this,
that he didn't want his family
00:41:13
to know the details
of what he actually did, and that would all come out
during the course of a trial.
00:41:20
NARRATOR: As part
of his guilty plea, Colin issued an apology
letter to the Gough family.
00:41:26
- He explained he was
sorry for what he had done, but it didn't wash
with the Gough family.
00:41:31
It was seen more of an insult
and a hurtful, paltry apology. And it was self-serving, I
think, at the end of the day.
00:41:39
NARRATOR: On April 12, 2005,
Colin Whelan was sentenced for the murder of Mary Gough.
00:41:47
Addressing Colin, the judge
described Mary's murder as the most
calculated and callous
00:41:53
killing he had ever encountered
in his entire time in court. He then gave Colin Whelan
a mandatory sentence
00:42:01
of life imprisonment. PAT MARRY: Colin
had tried to fool his own family, the Gough
family, the Gardas, and
00:42:09
everyone else that
would listen to him, that everything
was an accident. He intended to cash
in his 400,000
00:42:16
and swan off
to wherever he wanted to do whatever he wanted. And that's what he thought.
00:42:21
But unfortunately, his
plan came to a sticky end. Smart and all, and as clever
and all as he was,
00:42:28
he just wasn't as clever
as the investigator. And I'm proud that it
had a successful outcome
00:42:34
for the Gough family. HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND:
This whole case, from start to finish,
really seems
00:42:44
like Colin's attempt
to assert control and power and show off his intelligence.
00:42:51
All of it is him, I think,
trying to really manipulate those around him still. It's all still about how
he's perceived by the public.
00:43:00
And that sort of narcissism
is a real common trait that you see in people
with psychopathy.
00:43:06
- Mary Gough's death
is unfortunately one of many hundreds
that I've dealt with.
00:43:12
I've never forgotten it. And I've never forgotten her. And she's one of the ones
that stays with me.
00:43:18
And there's a few who do. I think as a woman,
you feel for women in those circumstances.
00:43:25
You think she was killed
by the person that she loved and who told her
that he loved her.
00:43:31
And I think how often women
get into a situation like that and assume that they're going
to have the happy ever after,
00:43:38
and then it all
goes horribly wrong. It's just a tragedy. NARRATOR: Over two
decades since her death,
00:43:46
Mary is still fondly remembered
by those that knew her and those involved
in the investigation.
00:43:54
- I can tell you from what
I picked up about Mary, from her friends,
from her family,
00:44:00
she was a beautiful,
kind, caring person. She was very diligent,
very intelligent.
00:44:06
And what happened was
absolutely shocking. But victims shouldn't be
forgot about, like, you know.
00:44:12
And as an investigator, you
get to know the deceased even though you've never met them.
00:44:17
And I felt Mary was
really a beautiful woman, a fine lady that suffered. And unfortunately,
in this world,
00:44:25
there's too many women
that go through that. [melancholy music] [theme music]