Alison Healy describes how a 'quiet, sensible' girl met her end in the Wicklow Mountains, and how DNA analysis caught her killer 23 years later
Phyllis Murphy's killer might never have been found if it had not been for the disappearance of another Kildare woman, Ms Deirdre Jacob.
Ms Jacob (19) was feared abducted when she went missing near her home in July 1998. She was the latest of several women to disappear in the Dublin-midlands-Wicklow area, and people began to fear that it may be the work of a serial killer.
The Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, ordered the reinvestigation of these disappearances, and the spotlight fell on the case of Phyllis Murphy.
The 23-year-old woman from Kildare town disappeared on Saturday, December 22nd, 1979.
She had been doing her Christmas shopping in Newbridge and was last seen going to a bus stop to catch the bus at about 6.30 p.m.
She had bought presents for her brother's children and was planning to spend Christmas with her family in Kildare.
Over the following days, her boots, cardigan, mittens and coat belt were found in the Curragh area. The mittens contained 60p, the price of the bus fare to Kildare town.
Ms Murphy's body was found on January 18th, 1980, in a wooded area in the Wicklow Gap. She had been raped and strangled. A manhunt was launched, and blood samples were taken from 50 men from the area. The investigation yielded nothing.
Forensic science techniques at that time could at best match samples from Ms Murphy's body with men with certain blood types.
However, the samples were retained in the Garda Technical Bureau, and when Operation Trace was launched in 1998, the samples were sent for analysis to a British laboratory.
The advances in DNA science meant that the results pointed to one man, John Crerar. Then aged 51, he was a former Army sergeant and worked as a security guard at the Black & Decker factory in Kildare town.
At the time of Ms Murphy's disappearance he drove a Datsun car, the make sought by gardaí after a witness reported seeing it near the place where her body was discovered.
The State Forensic Science Laboratory carried out further analysis on the samples, and the results continued to point to Crerar.
He was charged with the murder of Phyllis Murphy in July 1999.
Ironically, another case involving Crerar was due to be heard the week after he was charged with murder. He had sued the Minister for Defence for alleged hearing damage resulting from his 13 years in the Defence Forces.
The case was adjourned indefinitely in the Circuit Civil Court when the court president, Mr Justice Smyth, was told that Crerar was "unavailable".
Almost 23 years after Phyllis Murphy was killed, the trial for her murder opened in the Central Criminal Court on October 8th.
Crerar, a father of five, of Woodside Park, Kildare, pleaded not guilty.
He contradicted evidence given by witnesses on several issues. Ms Murphy's sister, Ms Martina McCormack, told the court that she, Phyllis and another sister, Breda, had all baby-sat for the Crerars.
The Crerars lived in a caravan not far from the Murphys. However, Crerar said he could not remember ever speaking to her, although he knew who she was.
His evidence also differed from evidence given by a former co-worker, Mr Patrick Bolger.
He had been working as a security guard with Crerar on the night Ms Murphy disappeared. Mr Bolger said Crerar had turned up for work at about 9 p.m. and left immediately, returning at about 10.45 p.m.
Crerar told the court he had turned up for work just after 8 p.m. and left after 9.40 p.m. to play darts and collect a turkey from a local pub.
He said he returned to work at about 11.30 p.m.
Crerar also contradicted evidence given by a former garage-owner, Mr John Dempsey.
He told the trial that Crerar had sought "cover" for around 7 p.m. on the night Ms Murphy disappeared. However, Crerar said it was Mr Dempsey who approached him, offering the alibi after gardaí questioned the garage-owner about Crerar's car.
Another former security guard colleague, Mr Sean Phelan, told the court that Crerar had spent "an inordinate length of time" cleaning the boot of his car at work, some time between December 22nd and December 24th.
It struck him as odd that Crerar parked his car about 100 yards up the factory car-park when he could have parked close to the security hut where he was getting the hot water and cleaning materials.
Crerar said he had been trying to get rid of the smell of spilt milk in the boot.
He said it was "absolutely impossible" that there was a DNA match linking him with samples taken from Phyllis Murphy's body.
Yesterday the jury of six women and six men chose to believe the evidence against him.
Phyllis Murphy was the third-youngest in a family of 10. In 1999, her eldest sister, Barbara, described Phyllis as "a very quiet girl, sensible and cautious".
Their mother had died 10 years before Phyllis's murder and their father had "died heartbroken" in 1986, Barbara said.