GARDAI BELIEVE the gun attack that claimed the life of 16-year-old Melanie McCarthy McNamara in west Dublin was well planned and carried out by criminals who stole the getaway car weeks in advance and fitted it with false number plates.
The gunman and those working with him lured the teenager and three men in their 20s to the spot where she was fatally wounded at 10.35pm on Tuesday. They threw rocks at a house linked to one of the men and then waited in a nearby 4X4 for the men to arrive to investigate the damage, before moving in and shooting at them.
Gardaí believe men Ms McCarthy McNamara was associated with were involved in family-based and drug-related feuds with a number of factions in Tallaght and that she was a victim of that violence.
Seán Crowe TD (SF), in whose Dublin south west constituency the killing occurred, said there had been an increase in violence, mostly drug-related, in recent times. He said Garda cutbacks had exacerbated the situation.
“There have been numerous shooting incidents and petrol bomb and pipe bomb attacks on homes in the area. There has also been widespread intimidation that has resulted in families being forced out of their homes. In one incident a youth allegedly had a gun held to his head for refusing to hide drugs.”
“Community and youth leaders have pointed out that teenagers regularly carry knives and other offensive weapons, often as a form of protection from attack.”
A postmortem carried out on Ms McCarthy McNamara’s remains by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Khalid Jabbar concluded she died from one shotgun blast to the head.
A member of the Traveller community, her family was long settled in a house in Tallaght. However, even though she was only a teenager she had moved out of the family home and had been living for some time with her boyfriend and his family in their home on Drumcairn Avenue. Friends
and family members
gathered at the house yesterday and said she had been collected on Tuesday night from a nearby Luas stop by three men known to her because those around her believed she would not be safe walking through Tallaght alone. “They’d always pick her up because of what was going on; the feuding,” said one man close to her.
When the three men who collected her were driving back to the house at Drumcairn Avenue on Tuesday night one of them got a call asking him to come to a house at nearby Brookview Way.
The occupants wanted his help because the house had just been attacked by men throwing rocks.
When the car carrying Ms McCarthy McNamara and the three men reached the house and parked outside, a black Hyundai Santa Fe SUV pulled out from its position parked down a cul de sac just metres away. It had been waiting at that spot for some time.
The 4X4, which was carrying at least two men, pulled up alongside the car and one man opened fire with a shotgun, discharging what gardaí believe were two shots.
Ms McCarthy McNamara was sitting in the back seat and was wounded in the head. The 4X4 then sped off in the direction of Citywest. Those in the car immediately rushed to Tallaght hospital in a bid to save the wounded teenager. While medical staff tried for several hours to save her, she was pronounced dead at about 1am.
The 4x4 was found off the Naas Road near Citywest just minutes after the shooting. It had been stolen in south Dublin and false number plates had been fitted. It was not burned out.