Stephen Breen - The Hitmen: The Shocking True Story of a Family of Killers for Hire

Stephen Breen, NewsBrands Irelands Crime Journalist of the Year 2018, is crime editor of the Irish Sun and has been writing about the Irish criminal world for two decades. Owen Conlon is an assistant news editor for the Irish Sun and is also a respected commentator on crime stories in the Irish media. Together they are authors of the number-one bestseller, The Cartel, the definitive account of the rise of the Kinahan gang. Stephen Breen is also author of Fat Freddie, the story of the notorious gangster Freddie Thompson.

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First published by Sandycove in 2021

Copyright Stephen Breen and Owen Conlon, 2021

The moral right of the authors has been asserted

Photograph of Eric Wilson Juan Garcia
Photograph of John Wilson Caroline Quinn
Photograph of Keith Wilson Crispin Rodwell

ISBN: 978-1-844-88560-2

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Theres gonna be his missus there, theres gonna be a child there. If they get in the way, theyre gonna be killed

The phrase overheard by the garda surveillance team on 2 November 2017 added yet another chilling dimension to a carefully planned murder that was on the verge of being carried out.

By itself, it might be dismissed as the boastfulness of a young, coked-up hitman desperate to impress his getaway driver. But when the threat was repeated by Luke Wilsons cousin Alan and then by another fellow gang member, investigators realized they were racing to avoid the contract killing of not just a criminal rival, but also potentially that of his toddler son.

Garda had been watching the assassination team for two months. They knew the identity of the target and where the attempt on his life was most likely to be made. They knew who was putting forward more than 100,000 to have him eliminated. They also knew that Luke Wilson was only acting in accordance with how he had been tutored by his cousin and uncles.

Between them, the five Wilsons had been responsible for more than a dozen deaths stretching right across Europe. Some victims were gunned down before they knew what was happening, others coldly dispatched even as they begged for their lives.

There was no room for sentiment in the business of paid murder. Paradoxically, John, Eric, Keith, Alan and now Luke had always combined cautious and careful planning with a reckless regard for the lives of innocent bystanders. They had access to military-grade sub-machine guns and explosives and had trained themselves in their use.

And if someone got in the way, it was their own bad luck. One targets sister had been shot and wounded along with her sibling; a man had been murdered in full view of his young children; and innocent customers and a bouncer had been gunned down outside a pub. Former criminal acquaintances had been ambushed and tortured or set up to be riddled with bullets by those they considered friends. Someone who had come looking for protection was executed in case he turned states witness. And an innocent young girl had been abducted from the street, held captive and slaughtered, her body hidden in a cold mountain grave, though the man accused of the crime was exonerated by a jury.

The investigators listening in were aware of all this, but still had to bide their time. Move in too soon and charges could not be made to stick. Too late and the country might see its first-ever gangland murder of a baby.

There was another factor to consider: without the right intervention, those looking to intercept a shooting might end up dead themselves. Informants had previously warned garda that Eric Wilson would not be taken alive. Now, his nephew Luke Wilson could be heard vowing to start fuckin shootin the police as well if any member of the force turned up to interfere. It was a life-or-death judgement call and the consequences of making it incorrectly were enormous.

For more than twelve years the Wilsons had relied on blood connections to enforce their own particular form of omert the gangland code of silence. Threats of extreme violence against potential witnesses and members of An Garda Sochna were common, and active efforts were made to carry them out. The clans homicidal reputation had been enough to see off powerful enemies in the past, including the might of the Kinahan cartel.

But the Wilsons reign of terror across Europe was coming to a close. Eric, Keith and John had already been taken out of the picture. One was the architect of his own spectacular downfall, another nailed by patient and clever police work. A third had fallen victim to his own kind. Now there remained just two.

Like the others, Alan and Luke had no intention of ever stopping.

Just like the others, they would have to be stopped instead.

That fellas off the smokes

Eric Wilson

The assassins unusual choice of ammunition meant Martin Kenny had never stood a chance. The first shotgun blast that hit him in the neck was a Brenneke round, a solid steel slug known as a rad buster by police in the US, who use them to disable the engines of speeding cars. They are also routinely carried by cops in Alaska, who say they are the only ammo capable of stopping a grizzly bear if necessary.

On 14 May 2005 Martin Kenny had been staying at the Ballyfermot home of his girlfriend, who had been disturbed at around 5 a.m. by the sound of glass breaking downstairs at the front door. There had been a similar attack on the front of the house the previous week and she woke Kenny to investigate. He was getting out of bed when the killer, wearing a balaclava and a bomber jacket, burst into their upstairs room.

The first shot disabled the victim, who fell to the floor. The killer then walked over and fired the second round into his head, before he turned and fled. Garda intelligence would later indicate that Kenny had been allocated the blame when a stash of drugs went missing. The murder was a relatively run-of-the-mill gangland murder except for one thing: it marked Eric Wilsons debut as a contract killer. Up until that point, Wilson, still three months shy of his twenty-second birthday, had been just another up-and-coming young drug dealer in west Dublin.