THE SECRET SERIAL KILLER
THE TRUE STORY OF KIERAN KELLY
Acknowledgements
I would like to sincerely thank RT Radio 1s Documentary on One series for allowing me to use the recordings made for the 2016 multi-award-winning production Anatomy of an Irish Serial Killer from which this book draws extensively.
Thanks to the spectacular editing talent of Belfasts finest, Gerard Donaghy, who knocked this book into shape when it had none. And thank you to Kate Bohdanowicz for catching the mistakes that were missed.
To Mona, thank you for your patience and support and to my baby Maya, for being my calm night-time companion through long rewrites.
Until the next time!
THE SECRET SERIAL KILLER
THE TRUE STORY OF KIERAN KELLY
ROBERT MULHERN
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by
PEN AND SWORD TRUE CRIME
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Yorkshire Philadelphia
Copyright Robert Mulhern, 2019
ISBN 978 1 52672 276 8
eISBN 978 1 52672 277 5
Mobi ISBN 9781 52672 278 2
The right of Robert Mulhern to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Due to the nature of the story at hand, this publication cannot be taken to provide the verifiable truth in relation to the Kieran Kelly case. This account endeavours to present the truest version of events as they played out, based on the files and the witnesses that the author had access to whilst researching and writing this book.
Preface
In August 1983, Kieran Patrick Kelly from County Laois in the Irish midlands was arrested for the murder of a homeless man, William Boyd, in the cells of Clapham Police Station, London.
During the interview that followed, Kelly confessed to multiple murders dating back to 1953. But he was only tried and convicted for the manslaughter of Boyd and the murder of another man, Hector Fisher.
Then, in 2015, the Kieran Kelly story was resurrected by a former police officer who claimed the Home Office covered up his crimes and he may have murdered up to thirty-one people.
This story is the search for those missing murders.
Prologue
July 2017, and huge, mature trees sway in the breeze of the County Laois countryside. On a quiet lane that sets off winding into even deeper greenery, two men stand at the start of a driveway to a detached house. Its mid-morning, the sky is brilliant blue in colour and chaff from corn, being harvested in neighbouring fields around the small village of Rathdowney, speckles the air.
The house belongs to a man called Nicky Meagher and this July morning, Nickys eyes are fixed to the ground close to the entrance. Theres a second man beside him whose eyes are also fixed to the ground. Niall ODoherty is a retired doctor who practised for decades in Rathdowney, just a couple of hundred yards back down the road from where both men are standing.
Thats the spot there now, said Nicky Meagher, straightening his back. Thats the spot where the skeleton was found, he pointed. The drone of a distant lawnmower filled the void left behind by his declaration.
Meagher explained how it was a similar kind of a day back in 1993 when he found the skeleton. Hed been digging a trench for a water pipe to run the fifty or so paces from his home to the road. His son, whom he refers to as Young Nick, was helping him the same afternoon when they struck something hard beneath the surface.
It was a bone, he said, his eyes remaining fixed on the ground. And then there was a skull, with a wire noose around the neck. I called Niall here. Meagher looked up and nodded his head in the direction of the doctor. And then I called the Garda. Im not sure who arrived first, Niall or the police but I explained to the Garda that a convicted murderer, Kieran Kelly, once lived here , in this house.
I knew he lived in London then and the Garda joked that the discovery might mean theyd have to travel to London, and that it might mean theyd get to take in a football match.
Then Nicky Meagher made a long exhale and looked up. The Garda just packed up and took the remains away, and that was the last we ever heard of it.
Chapter 1
Origins
It was late evening in July 2015 at London Bridge Station, central London. The setting sun had turned the sky orange over the west of the city and as the daytime temperature dropped, a symphony of screeching train wheels rose up from the platforms that stretched out like long promenades from the station concourse. Rushing beside a stream of city commuters, I hurried into the rear of a train carriage, slumped into a seat and fixed a pair of headphones to my iPhone.
That afternoon, a former Metropolitan Police officer had appeared on a flagship Irish radio programme called The Ray DArcy Show to describe a story of murder on the London Underground. I was working as a journalist in London, for the radio documentary unit of Irelands national broadcaster RTs Documentary on One series, and my producer had emailed the link, asking me to look into it.
Was the underground once stalked by a serial killer who pushed people from tube platforms to their deaths? asked the eponymous host .
Well, a new book reveals how a serial killer from Ireland pushed twelve people on to the tube line in London, he followed. And the author is Geoff Platt, who is in a studio in Manchester. Good afternoon, Geoff.
