The mother of a 20-year-old apprentice plumber, shot dead because he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, says she will not have completed her job as his mother until she gets justice for him.
Christine Campbell-Honan, whose son Anthony Campbell was murdered while at a plumbing job in December 2006, appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Crimecall programme on Monday she said: “The sad thing for me is that I live with it daily, as a mum you provide for your son and the one thing I feel ... I didn’t get him justice. I feel I haven’t completed my job until I get him justice.”
No charges have been brought for his murder or that of Martin Hyland (39) who was shot dead in the same incident and was the intended target.
Mr Campbell was in his final year as an apprentice plumber when he and a colleague went to work at a residence in Scribblestown Park in Finglas, Dublin, at about 8.30am on December 12th, 2006. They got to work on a radiator downstairs.
A resident in the house told them there was a male relative asleep in the bed upstairs but they could carry on their work regardless. That was Mr Hyland.
After the resident of the house left, Mr Campbell’s colleague also left to get building materials, leaving him working alone downstairs.
When the co-worker returned shortly after he couldn’t get into the house. He called Mr Campbell’s phone but got no answer. The resident then returned and when they entered the house they found Mr Campbell shot dead downstairs and Mr Hyland shot a number of times in bed. Gardaí say Mr Hyland was the intended target.
Mr Campbell had no criminal connections.
His mother said on Monday when she was told her son had been killed it did not register with her until she saw his body.
“I didn’t want to believe it. I had to go to the morgue that’s when it hit.”
She couldn’t touch him or kiss him. While normally burials take place within three days of the body being released to a family, she “held on to him for a week,” Ms Campbell-Honan said. “I just didn’t want him to go. I just couldn’t get my head around, ‘That’s my child, in a coffin looking so peaceful’.”
Speaking on Crimecall, inspector Dara Kenny of Finglas Garda station said Anthony Campbell “was in the wrong place at the wrong time”. Both the Campbell and Hyland families remained “devastated”.
“The trauma of these murders is still felt by so many people today. We are asking people to search their conscience and come forward with any information they have”.
He said a black Volkswagen Passat saloon car, used in the double murder, was found burnt out elsewhere in Finglas about an hour after the killings. It had been stolen in Newbridge, Co Kildare, on November 30th, 2006. It had been stored and had false plates. “A lot of people” were involved in the various steps, Insp Kenny said.
“I believe there are people out there who were privy to conversations in which these murders were discussed or confided in by those responsible. Seventeen years on I am conscious that loyalties will have changed. Personal circumstances may have changed that will just maybe enable those people with that vital information to come forward at this stage.”
He added: “Anyone who does come forward will be treated with the utmost sensitivity and compassion”.
Anyone with information can contact the freephone 1800 40 50 60 or Freetext CRIME to 57765
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