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in 1976 gentle giant Tom Nevan married an ambitious young woman 10 years his Junior Katherine Nevan was a self-made
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woman who basically came from nothing as business partners the couped look wildly
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successful but behind clothes doors their marriage was violent and abusive Tom was actually a battered husband and
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and he was hospitalized several times violence against men by women wasn't really talked about back then the way it
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is now when Tom Nevin was murdered his wife played The Grieving Widow to a tea but only she stood to benefit from the
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wealthy man's death he owned several properties and he had several life insurance
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policies who stands to gain on Tom's death the more it was looked at the more
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it was realized that it was Catherine Catherine nebin had been exposed as one of the world's most evil
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killers [Music] [Music] in the year 2000 Katherine nin's trial at Dublin Central criminal court for her
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husband Tom's murder had the press and the public captivated and horrified in
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equal measure it was Ireland pre- divorce pre-abortion and the idea of a woman who was so ambitious that she
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would um plot for 10 years to kill her husband it just gripped everyone's imagination she broke the mold Nevin's
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carefully Cur wardrobe and glamorous looks inspired fevered analysis in the Press she was dubbed the Black Widow but
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they were overly concerned with how Kat Nevan was dressed her demeanor in court and how she acted judge Mel Carol did
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say to the media that they do have a right to report on cases but this this would not outweigh Katherine evans's
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right to a fair trial Mel Carol had to ask the uh journalist to to please stop commenting
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on her outfits and her shoes her hair they even restricted taking photographs of her coming in and out of court
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Catherine Nevin's trial for murder was in keeping with a life in which she'd
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frequently CED attention and drama this killer Story begins on the 1st of October 1950 in the east of
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Ireland Catherine Evan was born in 1950 in a small village in Bali Donna in ner in County glair I visited the house and
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it was like it literally had a tin roof on the house so it's quite sort of modest start in Life author Neo Conor
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has researched Katherine Nevin's life starting with her childhood when she was
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known by her maiden name of Catherine Scully she had a sister and a brother they looked like a close family
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unusually for the time she did her leaving CT most people left after their inert so she must have been quite clever
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to have got to that point after school she did a secretarial course she went to Dublin to work in the Castle Hotel one
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of the oldest in the city she was young glamorous and ambitious Catherine Scully moved to
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Dublin in 1969 a year or so later she met Tom Nevin her future husband at a festival
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in the town of Lun Vana in County CLA it's a traditional matchmaking Festival
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that goes on in down the south of Ireland and it's well attended and and uh it's always good good fun and and
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good crack Tom was the oldest of nine children from a little farming background in China in County gway Tom
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had married young and moved to England but when that didn't work out he'
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returned to Ireland and settled in Dublin where he was running a pub for his Uncle Tom was on his way to becom
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very wealthy he had uh a portfolio of property that he bought Katherine would have been aware that he was doing nicely
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he was building up a sizeable bank account Tom was a very physically tall man um he was 6'3 or
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four very quiet affable but easily manipulable and I think that's what appealed to the young Katherine Nevin
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who saw him as an opportunity to further her ambitions and so they formed a relationship Tom Nevin managed to get
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his first marriage an olded and in January 1976 34-year-old Tom and Katherine Scully who was 25 were married in Rome
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but before the wedding had taken place she'd done something highly unusual before marrying Tom Catherine
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impersonated a social worker and she went to the home of Tom's former wife to
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try and get information from her about Tom and she asked her very intimate questions like just to make sure she
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knew everything about him it's incredibly manipulative it's almost stalking behavior and I think it's quite
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concerning satisfied that her spouse was the right man to help further her Ambitions The Newlywed Katherine nin
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wasted no time in in launching a range of money-making Ventures they were living in Rialto in
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Dublin and kathern was always very well presented well dressed and well groomed and she started lecturing in Beauty
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Department and um doubl in modeling school from her home RO Alro actually vanity was always kind of
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a feature in her in her life in the early 1980s nin persuaded her husband Tom that it was time to expand their
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business Empire he would have been happy to have according to people who knew him
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remained a Baran for the rest of his life but Katherine wanted the premises she wanted you know to be the
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boss there first Venture was in a public house in the fingas area of Dublin they got the pub in fingas h
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which had been like previously subjected to arson attacks and a lot of antisocial
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problems I think it was there that she first got a taste for Irish politics Shin Fain officers and indeed
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paramilitaries because it was a focal point it was in fingas that Katherine Nevin would meet some of the men who
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would later Loom large in her and her husband's Story the first in 1985 was convicted criminal Jerry
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heaps he was a man who was in the ira who had served time as an IRA prisoner 10 years he served for armed robbery and
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when he was released from prison he was working um in an office attached to the shin faine constituency office making
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things that could be sold to raise funds for the Republican prisoners above the shinan advice Center
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was a TV repair shop run by an associate of heaps a shinan counselor called Jon Jones Katherine NE used to go and visit
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Jones in the local shinan office to discuss business matters with him and as a sort of quidd proquo she allowed
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shinan to distribute their newspaper in the finglass PB it was around this time in 1985 that
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cracks in Tom and Catherine's 9-year marriage first began to show when Mrs Nevin met a man called Willie
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mlan Willie mlan was a criminal he'd been involved in fraud and deception perhaps smuggling
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alcohol he was quite a murky character will because he was a Protestant um he was interested in unionism and
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loyalism I think Katherine Evan enjoyed the company of men she regarded as dangerous and there were quite a lot of
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those around not just the paramilitaries but also criminals there was something that gave her a frit of
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excitement according to him she was sitting at the bar drinking and he went up and started Ed uh chatting her up and
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um they they had an affair by the time she'd embarked on the affair with William mlan I mean she
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regarded Thomas useless partly because he was a bit too quiet and a bit too gentle and not nearly exciting enough he
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was a good businessman he's a good business head uh but he obviously got in her way Nevin's affair with mlan
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brazenly flaunted for her husband and the rest of the world to see was also confusing for those who knew what kind
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of men she'd been associating with since her move to Dublin you have Katherine on the one
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hand interested in republicanism on the other hand having a relationship with a man on the other side of you know that
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whole sectarian divide was Nevin deliberately making contacts with men rumored to have criminal or paramilitary
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Connections in the hopes they could be useful to her in the future her fa with Willie mlan was just one sign of the
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difficulties she and her husband were having 9 years into their marriage accusations of alcohol abuse and
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violence had also begun to swirl the marriage was marred by a lot of alcohol Tom liked to drink and uh
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Katherine liked to drink and they were in an environment where drink was overflowing Katherine always maintained
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that Tom was a silent alcoholic that he hid it well from the the public but that
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uh she suffered as a result Katherine nebin complained to her male friends that her husband would beat
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her up after drinking in reality however it was Catherine not Tom who was capable
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of violence despite their marital difficulties in the spring of 1986 the neans set their sights on a new business
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venture I suppose Nevan had always got uh higher ideas and higher aspirations and wanted to maybe move to a more
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salubrious part of the country and they settled on Jack whites which they bought
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for uh a tidy sum at the time I think it was about in the order of 270,000 the draw of Jack White's Pub was that it
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was in an area brsh Bay County wicko which was where people uh with Holiday Homes
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went it's a long long Sandy Beach nice summmer day you could be forgiven for
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particular that you were in Spain or what costed us all one of these places it was on the road south from Dublin
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people who were driving South would stopped for lunch and they had a very good CV it was a very good place to stop
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at the Grand Opening of their new business in March 1986 Katherine nean aimed to make an
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impression naturally enough Katherine Nevin wanted to make a stir she invites all the people she knows from Dublin
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William mlan is there a man called Jerry Heat keeps is there with his wife and makes also makes sure that she gets all
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the local dignitaries that she knows I think Katherine was always sort of interested in your status and so for
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instance if the local judge came into the pub he would be given special treatment and feel the full sort of
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effect of her charms I think Katherine had a a personality type for her she wanted to
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get where whever she wanted to go and whoever was there to help her good bad or indiff she would use them to her
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Advantage she courted the local guard officers both on and off duty they'd be
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in the bar getting freebies and having drinks she would be behind the bar in her silk dressing gown and would be
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quite revealing and you know she had two little um I call them handbagged dogs but you know like fluffy dogs that were
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fed Kit Kats one of the other things that set Katherine Evan apart because she had cosmetic surgery she had eye
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lifts and fat removal and a tummy tuck most unusual in Ireland at that time cuz she wanted to be glamorous and
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attractive and a real figure in terms of the roles in the pub Tom would have been behind the bar and
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Katherine was very much like the hostess out sort of meeting and greeting now I say that but people would fall foul of
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her and she was regularly sort of Bing people she would bar are indiscriminately for the most like
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ridiculous reasons you just take a dislike to someone and that would be it for staff who worked at Jack White's
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the contrast between Nevin and her husband Tom soon became apparent Tom Nevin would have been known to all his
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staff and anybody that was in the pub as a gentle giant he was the kind of man who for
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instance if staff needed advances on their wages had no problem sort of giving it to them he never humiliated
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did anyone he always was very respectful of the staff so people really loved him
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in the area across the board nobody had any sort of time for Catherine she was very abusive she would scream and shout
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there was this huge difference between the two characters there was a source of Fascination how how these two ever got
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together by the time the couple moved to British Bay Katherine Nevin's marriage
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to Tom was increasingly volatile Katherine could be very very violent and abusive towards him and when
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Katherine was drinking she was especially violent they saw Katherine throw a ashtray across the bar at him
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one time um he was regularly sort of H whacked by her we have to remember that this was Ireland in the 1980s so the
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understanding that men could be victims of of domestic violence was something that just wasn't spoken about I think
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men would have found it shameful it was a very kind of misogynistic traditionalistic kind of culture that
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was going on for everybody back in the 80s not just in Ireland if you can't handle your woman what kind of a man are
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you that's not how we think about it now Tom Nevan was a very private man he
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hated gossip so there might have been an element where this would have been a second failed marriage and Tom might
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have been very embarrassed about admitting that to everybody staff remembered one occasion when Tom
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had locked himself into the Jen's toilet and could not be persuaded to come out
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um and an ambulance was called for him but he refused to to leave in it on several occasions Tom did end up
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in hospital due to the assaults he got from Catherine Nevan as the years passed Catherine
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nevan's aggression continued guardi may not have been aware of the violence but they did have frequent
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reason to visit the pub on official business Katherine made a very high number of allegations about crime so
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there was always investigations in the pub so the the local guards would have been in and out taking statements you
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know because she made a huge number of insurance claims as well on the property you know for items disappearing and so
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on the multiple reports of criminal activities and insurance claims by Catherine neevan caused the guards to be
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suspicious of insurance fraud although I don't think any charges were brought
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against her despite moving out of Dublin in Pursuit Of The High Life Nevin had not
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lost her taste for fraternizing with members of the criminal underworld Duty Holland who also lived
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in British Bay was going in and sitting at the bar and talking to Catherine doy Holland was career criminal from the
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inner city who would have had a lot of associations with members of criminal gangs for an organized Gangland figure
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of that kind of caliber to be sort of networking with Katherine meant that she had sort of
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contacts local guardy called to Jack White's in one morning in 1996 would certainly have felt like Big City crime
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had suddenly arrived in beautiful British Bay the 18th of March 1996 was significant in that it was the 10th year
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anniversary of their uh acquiring the pub it was also a bank holiday weekend it was St Patrick's weekend it
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was a very busy weekend there were guest rooms in the pub where Katherine Nevin often allowed her employees to stay
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after a late shift but the 18th of March 1996 was different the staff were going
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to dance in Arlo seven or eight mil mil away and were're expecting to return to the pub
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to sleep she tells the staff sorry you can't stay here tonight the next anyone
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heard from Katherine nin was at 4:30 the following morning when a panic button at
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the pub was pressed alerting the local guarder station to a possible problem when the guards arrived about
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430 in the morning of the 19th of March they found Katherine behind the pole door on the floor slumped and the back
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door open Catherine was disheveled when the guardi arrived on the scene she had a
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dressing gown rope tied around her arms she had managed to free her legs she had
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been gagged when the guards got to Katherine nein to took the gag off released her
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hands um she gave every impression of being in a State of Shock her eyes rolled back she said her shoulder
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hurt dressed in a purple night shirt 45-year-old Nevin claimed to have been awoken by a hooded man who pushed her
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face into the pillow and threatened her with a knife demanding to know where she
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kept her jewelry she said she heard the sound downstairs of like a pot dropping and that she could smell
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gunshot residue then she asked where's Tom Tom nebin was found in the kitchen
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he was lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a single gunshot wound to his side he's clearly dead and he was just
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54 years old there was no sign of forced entry nor that there' had been a struggle at first glance all the signs
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suggested Tom had been killed in a botched robbery as the only other person in the building when Tom was shot dead
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Catherine Nevin was the only person who could give guardi any clues that would lead them to her husband's
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killer when you'd go to a murder scene you would round up whoever is there and
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captured their account straight away Katherine was very vague about uh what had happened when it came down to
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it she had heard uh a loud buying she had heard the two cars leaving uh but she wasn't of any great
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assistance as to what actually had occurred people can me quite distressed and shocked if they witness a murder
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particularly the murder of their husband it's completely understandable that she
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would have been so distraught that she couldn't give a statement however it is unusual that somebody who have had
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their husband murdered didn't want to give a statement to the guardi because
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surely you'd want to give them every tiny piece of information that you can think of particularly when it's fresh in
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your mind after Tom's death Catherine did behave in a way that people found suspicious or unusual she didn't want to
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go to the hospital and have her injuries checked when you go to a scene like that
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and somebody is saying that they were tied up and all the rest your first instinct is to look at
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the the wounds look for the ties guardi were suspicious of the fact that there were no bind marks on
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Katherine's ankles although her wrists certainly did have uh binds on them um
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her ankles were not uh marked two guardi called for experienced forensic experts
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to attend what clearly appeared to be a murder as they waited they noticed some unexpected features of the
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scene there was 15,550 pounds taken the family car was taken but the her jewelry none of it was
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the jewelry that the Raiders were so interested in was uh like placed down the stairs and was in a trail out to a
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ditch so they never actually took it in the end although Catherine insisted she'd
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you know been attacked in her bedroom and the drawers had been ransacked in fact they hadn't been yanked out they'
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been very carefully taken out by the sides far from it being chaos a lipstick was standing straight up on her dressing
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table there were some odd features too of Tom 's blood soaked body for a start
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he was cold to the touch which suggested that actually Tom had died a lot earlier
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that it had taken a serious amount of time before she set off that Panic alarm his glasses were on his face and
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the pathologist reckoned that the force of the shot would have been such that that could not have happened unless they
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were placed back there it was clear that Tom Nevan was taken by surprise and that he had no
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defensive wounds it said that he may have been conscious for perhaps 30 seconds after he was shot but would have
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bled out and died within 5 minutes later that morning Nevin threw out suggestions
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to detectives about what might have happened to Tom she claimed that he had been
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followed when he was taking the money to the bank the suggestion being that you know this robbery had been planned for
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some time by criminals oh there were some very odd people who came into the Kitchen last
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week they told her they were looking for the lbe but in fact they were actually casing The Joint she claimed that there
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had been attempted break in at the pub and that she had seen this brown Renault like outside Nevin seemed Keen to throw
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suspicion on potential suspects in her husband's death but she was not always
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as helpful to investigators in trying to establish the amount of cash that was stolen guardy
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would have gone back to um receipts on tills and things like that to see how much money was coming in she was
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refusing to hand over till rolls which would have you know aided the investigation the guards wanted to
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recreate some of the claims that Katherine had made about being able to smell gunpowder in her bedroom and so
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they wanted to um basically discharge a shot uh and see if the smell would travel like had she lied or not H she
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absolutely Point Blank refused increasingly suspicious of the so-called grieving Widow G officers continued to
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investigate while Katherine Nevin quickly made arrangements to bury her husband there was a huge turnout at
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Tom's funeral there was real shock and upset in the community over the the death of this man who um had provided
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employment a friend to people in the area and uh people were very upset by it Katherine carried a ro and a sort of a
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lace handkerchief the people who were there felt that she was acting apart Catherine would have the guardi
00:25:07
believed that uh she had a good solid marriage that everything was honky Dory when detectives began interviewing
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friends family staff and customers a different story quickly emerged it soon became revealed that
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their marriage was not good that there was violence in that marriage and the violence was coming from Catherine to
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Tom and that Catherine was having Affairs Nevin whose fling with Dublin associate Willie mlan had ended in late
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1986 was later believed to have had extra marital relationships with at least two other
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men when you start digging into to somebody's life you're going to be looking for MO
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who had a motive to kill Tom that's one of the key key questions it was found
00:26:06
through this process when they're investigating Tom's life that really he
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didn't have any enemies he he was a popular man he was kind he was gentle it
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was Catherine who was who was the problem if infidelity wasn't motive enough guardi soon uncovered another
00:26:27
reason nein might want her husband dead the months prior to um Tom's murder Katherine had taken out a massive life
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insurance policy on his uh unexpected demise and uh so she was set to you know cash in on I think was over 100 Grand as
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a result of her husband's murder Tom had amassed quite a considerable amount of money and his
00:26:53
property and dealings and there was no children there there was only one so benefactor and that was
00:27:01
Katherine so it's all sort of stacking up against Catherine very early on there
00:27:09
was one problem with the theory that Catherine Nevin may have killed her husband to get her hands on his fortune
00:27:16
at the time of his death her hands appear to have been tied very firmly behind her back Nevin had the motive and
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the opportunity to kill Tom but perhaps not the means to pull the trigger herself then 24 days after Tom's murder
00:27:34
the Garder made a discovery that was a blast from Katherine nin's past when guardi searched Catherine's
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bedroom and took various items for further tests they found in a contacts book names that rying bells one of them
00:27:50
was Jerry heaps whose number had been uh scratched out heaps was the former Ira prisoner from fingas whom had invited
00:27:59
along with his wife to the grand opening of Jack White's Inn 10 years earlier but Katherine denied ever
00:28:07
knowing or meeting Jerry heaps suspicion was strong that Nevin had been involved
00:28:13
in her husband's murder and that perhaps she had an accomplice but the guarder
00:28:18
had no way of proving it there certainly wasn't enough evidence to go to the DPP just from the
00:28:27
crime scene from the pathologist report the guardi needed some sort of cooperation somebody to come forward and
00:28:37
say yeah you're on the right lines Katherine nean was arrested in July for possession of a firearm it
00:28:44
wasn't suspected at any time that this actually was the murder weapon however
00:28:49
they decided to arrest her due to the license being expired they believed that she had had
00:28:56
Tom murdered and they couldn't bring her in for questioning on murder without um
00:29:02
a warrant that and and to get the warrant they needed really you know substantial evidence that she was a a
00:29:08
suspect so they used this technicality of this unauthorized firearm to bring her in to see if they could get her to
00:29:14
crack obviously she knew better and she refused to talk she knew what was going on this was the
00:29:22
dance Nevin was held for 48 hours she refused food and did not answer answer any questions detectives were no closer
00:29:31
to finding out exactly what had happened to innocent Publican Tom Nevin not approving who' killed
00:29:39
him then in December 1996 almost 9 months after Tom's murder two men from Katherine nebin fingler past came out of
00:29:49
the woodwork with a jaw-dropping story Jon Jones and Jerry heaps both came forward to say that they they had
00:29:58
been solicited by Catherine over a long period of time to kill Tom Jerry heaps told the Gard that Katherine nean used
00:30:06
to visit him regularly in his fingas office he said to the guards that despite her moving to wicko she
00:30:13
continued to visit him on regular occasions she had asked heaps on 10 occasions to murder Tom and she even
00:30:20
went as far as to suggest ways that he could do it he said he went out with her on
00:30:26
multiple occasions he visited the house of flats that Tom rented um uh where Katherine showed him uh how he could you
00:30:35
know suddenly jump out and surprise Tom and kill him she also suggested to him quite elaborately that perhaps he would
00:30:43
do it while they were at dinner together so that she could have Tom dying in her
00:30:47
arms no doubt to be used as an alibi for the solicitation Nevin then said she wanted
00:30:53
Tom killed in the pub to make it look like a robbery and she could pay the killer up to £40,000
00:31:01
around the same time Nevan was meeting with Jon Jones she told him that her husband was a violent drunk and beat her
00:31:08
up and asked him to kill him so she went into a local politician's Clinic looking
00:31:13
to have her husband murdered by a shin Fane H counselor like it's incredible
00:31:19
that she would be so Brazen as to even ask both men had refused Nevin's request
00:31:25
neither of them had reported her scheme at the time nor had they warned Tom Nevin about the plot on his life but as
00:31:32
suspicion against Katherine Nevin grew in the months after Tom's death nevan's
00:31:37
Associates were coming under intense scrutiny were interviewed and realized that the net was closing in on them and
00:31:45
that it was better to cooperate than uh be found as as a suspect Catherine nebin
00:31:54
longtime Associates had turned on her a devastating blow to her claims of innocence in the murder of her husband
00:32:03
Tom then a third man went to detectives one with whom Nevin had had a torrid Affair some 10 years earlier in 1990
00:32:13
Katherine Nevin was in hospital in Dublin and asked her former lover Willie mlan to visit her when he did he was met
00:32:22
with a disturbing [Music] offer she approached William mle and said something along the lines that
00:32:31
there's 20 grand in it for you to get rid of Tom just like the other two men mlan had
00:32:38
firmly refused to help Nevin kill her husband in fact he was horrified at the request I think it's an arrogance in her
00:32:48
that she probably thinks everybody thinks like her and when actually they don't I think she's
00:32:55
probably quite cold probably without remorse and would just have assumed that these people were
00:33:05
exactly the same the fact that three people came forward it changed the game dramatically because here they were all
00:33:13
saying more or less the same thing uh they were all pointing the figure in the One Direction it was
00:33:19
consistent presented with these claims nebin simply told investigators to contact her lawyer months p with no
00:33:28
further developments Tom Nevin's death was still officially unsolved the culprit still on the
00:33:36
loose the statements from these tree men would allow and may support a charge for
00:33:41
tree solicitation charges but not murder and the problem with Katherine nans case
00:33:45
is they didn't have any clear Smoking Gun evidence in fact investigators still had
00:33:52
no murder weapon at all nor any idea about who might have pulled the Trier and they were also worried because
00:34:00
she had she had such contact you know and she she was capable of anything you know that they really feared that the
00:34:07
case would never come to the court finally more than a year after Tom Nevin was murdered prosecutors were
00:34:15
confident they had a case that would stick they believed that the weight of circumstantial evidence along with the
00:34:23
corroborating statements of the three men were sufficient to prove Catherine Nevin's guilt so on the 14th of April
00:34:31
1997 13 months after Tom's death Catherine was finally charged today members of the investigating team took
00:34:39
Mr nevan's Widow Catherine into custody there she was charged with the murder of
00:34:43
her husband and with soliciting others to murder him in 1989 and 1990 when Catherine neans trial began at
00:34:53
the criminal courts of Justice in Dublin on the 12th of January 2000 it was a media circus as journalist Neo Connor
00:35:04
recalls the courtroom was packed every day the case had absolutely captured the public imagination because uh well it
00:35:11
was a female murderer and that was very rare at the time she was a glamorous woman she was you know quite a Confident
00:35:22
Woman but that was overshadowing that this love man had been murdered and perhaps it was
00:35:31
actually taking away from the seriousness of what had happened after opening statements the
00:35:39
prosecution began to lay out their case against Katherine Nevin but on the 26th of January after dozens of witnesses had
00:35:47
already taken the stand the trial abruptly collapsed the first trial collapsed because the jurors overheard discussing
00:35:56
the case they mustn't discuss the case until all the evidence is heard so that
00:35:59
they can go into the trial with an open mind and not having somebody convicted before they they've heard all of the
00:36:06
evidence the second trial was convened and that was on the 8th of February 2000 and it collapsed because a uh a member
00:36:16
of the jury fell ill it was around this time that Katherine Nevin who was out on
00:36:22
bail made another attempt to avoid facing trial for Tom's murder she claimed that someone had broken into
00:36:30
her house and tried to kill her and she was hospitalized as a result now now bear in mind this person who broke into
00:36:35
the house H did so while there was a guard guarding her property to make sure that nothing happened and she didn't try
00:36:43
and evade Justice Nevin claimed the attacker had threatened her and forced her to drink a
00:36:52
milk-like liquid after she was hospitalized the contents of her stomach analyzed and the
00:36:59
conclusion was that she had drunk uh water and fairy liquid to make herself sick it was all very dramatic all very
00:37:08
unusual with nin's avoidance tactics thwarted on the 14th of February 2000 the retrial finally began with a fresh
00:37:19
jury it was one of the longest trials at the time in history there were 170 witnesses there were the states made
00:37:27
main Witnesses who claims that Catherine had solicited them to kill Tom she gave contradicting evidence
00:37:35
throughout the trial she had multiple extramarital Affairs she had been openly violent towards Tom so there was a huge
00:37:41
credibility issue for Catherine nean which then trying to deny the solicitation that would have caused
00:37:48
issues because it was incredible the motivation according to the prosecution was money by some
00:37:56
estimations Nevin stood to gain up to1 million pounds from his death it's the oldest motive in the book
00:38:05
take the money and get rid of Tom in the early part of 1997 before she was arrested she'd
00:38:11
sold the pub for three times what they'd PID for it I mean she was now a rich
00:38:17
woman potentially she didn't want to leave Tom because that would have meant
00:38:22
splitting her Fortune she wanted it all Catherine strongly denied a plot to have her
00:38:29
husband killed she said their marriage was happy but she also made a range of false accusations against her late
00:38:38
husband she called him an alcoholic she called him a paramilitary he was an Irish Republican in other words to prove
00:38:46
that he had a lot of enemies after a 6- week trial one of the longest criminal trials in Irish legal history the jury
00:38:54
retired to consider their verdict the judge's Direction had been very very specific you know she had said that
00:39:03
although there was a lot of uh circumstantial evidence that circumstantial evidence should be
00:39:08
regarded as like the strands in a rope and that the more strands there are the stronger the Rope is for many in the
00:39:16
courtroom it was a long tense wait for a verdict it took the jury 5 days and that's 5 days for the investigation team
00:39:28
knowing that they've done the best that they can but uh still you know did we do
00:39:34
enough did we not do enough will there be a retrial Catherine Nevin showed no signs
00:39:40
of apprehension about her fate I remember one day her barister was you know offering a coffee for her like
00:39:48
to bring it back into the court while she was waiting there and uh she turned around to me and she asked would I like
00:39:54
a coffee as well and on other occasions uh uh you know she was talking and joking about who would play her in the
00:40:01
movie so she was very very relaxed she absolutely believed that she was going to walk 5 days in court is a long time
00:40:08
when you are waiting and when at any time you know the knock can come on the jury door just after halfast 6 the
00:40:15
atmosphere inside and outside the court was electrified as the jury announced their
00:40:21
verdict the verdict was Katherine Nevan was found guilty of murder and she was found guilty of the tree solicitation
00:40:29
charges Nevan got the mandatory life sentence for murder and 7even years for each of the soliciting charges to run
00:40:38
concurrently she was in the women's wing of Mount Joy prison in Dublin probably one of the most famous
00:40:46
female prisoners in Irish legal history in 2003 she appealed her conviction she alleged that Jack White's
00:40:55
Pub was an IRA Pub which to support her contention that he was killed by the IRA Catherine never accepted that she
00:41:03
was guilty Katherine always had a very high opinion of herself and always thought her high and mighty contacts or
00:41:10
someone in a White Horse would ride in and and and save the day she appealed again in 2010 she tried
00:41:18
to get miscarriage of Justice proved and that too was turned down while continuing to protect her
00:41:27
innocence nein also pursued the fortune she believed was rightfully hers she did
00:41:35
try even while she was in prison to get the property portfolio she thought that she should inherit it as his wife but
00:41:43
thankfully Tom's Family were able to challenge that and Catherine failed in her quest to benefit from Tom's
00:41:52
death even if she had that money what's she going to do with it and a life Senter sentence what's she really what's
00:41:59
she going to do with it so some of this is about control and selfishness and resentment in August 2017 Nevin left
00:42:09
prison to live out the last 6 months of her life Nevan was found to have a brain
00:42:16
tumor and was terminally ill and was given compassionate release she lived only a few months
00:42:23
after she was released to a hospice still maintaining her innocence in Dublin Wicklow and wherever Katherine
00:42:31
nevan's influence reached the effects of her words and her actions are still
00:42:36
being felt not least for Tom nin's family the lies that she told and the lives that she wrecked in the process of
00:42:45
sort of killing him and that the false Trails of suspicion that she pointed at completely innocent people like we
00:42:55
devastating I think there's an evilness about Catherine because she's so
00:43:00
determined and seems to be so without any genuine concern for anybody but herself dubb the Black Widow by the
00:43:11
media for her ruthless predatory actions Katherine Nevin has become a notorious figure determined from a young age to
00:43:19
live a life of status and wealth her husband Tom was perhaps seen as a stepping stone to success then as an
00:43:27
obstacle to the life she believed she [Music] deserved though convinced she could get
00:43:34
away with murder Nevin's Brazen scheming left a trail of witnesses and ensured
00:43:40
she will always be recognized as one of the world's most evil killers [Music]