Courts

Thomas Dooley murder: Woman recalls ‘horror show’ attack on husband as five of his relatives receive life sentences

Judge says despite ‘protestations of innocence’ by defendants the ‘only miscarriage of justice’ in case was death of Thomas Dooley (43)

The late Thomas Dooley with his wife Siobhan
Olivia Kelleher
Tue Jul 30 2024 - 14:38

A woman has told the Central Criminal Court that her husband was butchered by his brother and cousins in a “horror show” attack at a graveyard in Tralee, Co Kerry.

Five men were on Tuesday sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Thomas Dooley (43), a father of seven from Ballyspillane, Killarney, who was fatally injured in front of his wife, Siobhán, and their four youngest children at Rath Cemetery on October 5th, 2022 while attending the funeral of a family friend.

The five men sentenced to life were Mr Dooley’s brother Patrick Dooley (36), of Arbutus Grove, Killarney; his brother in law and cousin Thomas Dooley Snr (43) and his cousin Thomas Dooley Jnr (21), both of the Halting Site, Carrigrohane Road, Cork; his cousin Daniel Dooley (42), of An Carraigin, Connolly Park, Tralee, and his cousin Michael Dooley (29) of the Halting Site, Carrigrohane Road. A sixth accused, a juvenile, was also convicted of murder and will be sentenced later this year.

Thomas Dooley Jnr was also found guilty of intentionally or recklessly causing harm to Ms Dooley at the cemetery. Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring imposed a 4½ year sentence for this which will run concurrently to his life sentence.

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In a victim impact statement read into the record on her behalf, Ms Dooley said her life was turned upside down when her husband was killed in a barbaric attack. “What me and my four children witnessed in the graveyard that day will never leave us,” she said.

[ Three accused convicted of murder of father of seven in Kerry cemetery two years ago ]

Ms Dooley said she will “never understand why Thomas was murdered in the most horrible way” and that her husband told her to run “so I could be saved”.

“The last two months of the trial have been very hard for me and my children. Every day we have had to see the six men who murdered Thomas,” she said. “I want my children to be able to be children. I made a promise to Thomas the day we put him in the ground that we would get justice for him and we did. I am blessed to have my babies and my grand babies and we will always keep his memory alive.”

Dean Kelly SC, prosecuting, said tension had arisen as a relationship between one of Mr Dooley’s daughters and one of the accused had “broken down”. Ms Dooley had told the trial that there was a “clean break” between her family and the accused men when her daughter Rosie broke up with Thomas Dooley Jnr in November 2019.

Mr Kelly said Ms Dooley and one of their daughters walked in to the graveyard about 15 seconds behind her husband and their three sons. Ms Dooley said she noticed Patrick Dooley first because of his height and saw him and Thomas Dooley Snr grinning. She said Thomas Dooley Snr took off his coat and had two weapons and that Patrick Dooley had a knife.

She said a maul gathered around her husband and she screamed at her children to go. She scraped at the face of Thomas Dooley Snr to try get him away from her husband. She recalled the men hitting him with weapons and “blood squirting everywhere” and that somebody shouted “take her out too” before she was knocked to the ground.

Mr Kelly said the six men ran to three vans after the attack and these “left the scene at speed”. Each vehicle took a “distinct route” to go to Cork city, he said.

A postmortem indicated that Mr Dooley received two stab wounds, one chop wound to the right arm and an incised wound to the right thigh. He also had blunt force injuries and bruising.

[ ‘Ye won’t get an hour of luck’: sixth man convicted of graveyard murder shouts at widow ]

Ms Justice Ring said it was “fortuitous” that a garda was in a nearby shop when Ms Dooley ran out of the cemetery to raise the alarm and this allowed “vital information” to be gained about the perpetrators. She said she wished “the experience and resources in this investigation could be applied to all investigations across the country”.

Ms Justice Ring said despite “protestations of innocence” by the convicted men the “only miscarriage of justice” in the case was the taking of Mr Dooley’s life. “To do that in front of his young children was unforgivable,” she said.