GARDAÍ BELIEVE a gang that shot dead two cousins at a service station in a late-night attack had been tipped off as to their targets’ movements and lay in wait to ambush them in a burst of automatic gunfire.
The double murder in Finglas, north Dublin, on Tuesday night brings to 23 the number of gun killings in the Republic this year.
The dead men have been named as Glen Murphy (20), O’Devaney Gardens, North Circular Road, and Mark Noonan (23), Drumalee, North Circular Road.
Both were single and unemployed.
Neither was known to gardaí for any involvement in organised crime, although Mr Murphy had served a short prison sentence for criminal damage.
Detectives are now examining their backgrounds and recent activities in an effort to establish a motive for the killings.
“It may be linked to something personal because they weren’t on the radar for any involvement in serious crime,” said one source.
Mr Murphy and Mr Noonan had been at a female friend’s apartment on Rathbourne Drive, Finglas, on Tuesday night when they decided to go to a petrol station for cigarettes.
They drove in Mr Noonan’s dark grey Toyota Avensis to the Tesco petrol station at the Clearwater shopping centre on Finglas Road, arriving just after 11.40pm.They parked their car beside the shop in the service station and both walked towards the service hatch.
A dark-coloured BMW 5 series carrying three men pulled alongside.
Two of the occupants, sitting in the front passenger and back seat, opened fired on their targets from the moving vehicle with automatic pistols.
Mr Noonan was hit in the back and the back of the head as he stood at the service hatch. Mr Murphy scrambled back into the Avensis to hide from the gunmen.
However, the gunmen’s car slowed almost to a halt and one of the armed men got out, walked over to the Avensis and shot Mr Murphy in the upper body and head.
The killer, who wore a hooded jacket which was possibly dark green, then got back into the BMW, which was driven at speed from the scene.
The emergency services were alerted but a doctor who attended the scene pronounced both men dead.
Garda Supt John Gilligan said the BMW carrying the killers, which was driven by a third man, had been in or around the service station for at least five minutes before the victims’ vehicle arrived.
The BMW, with an 06 D registration, had driven through the station at least once in an apparent practice run.
Supt Gilligan described the killing as “particularly callous”.
“The victims were both very young men and this is a very difficult time for their families and for the local community,” he said.
There was one staff member in the petrol station shop when the shooting occurred and a customer was walking away from the service hatch when the gunmen opened fire. At least two other customers on the forecourt at the time have been traced.
Detectives have appealed for anyone else who was at the petrol station between 11.30pm and 11.45pm to contact Finglas gardaí.
Sources said the killers may not have had their hoods pulled up when they drove through the service station minutes before the killing and their faces may have been seen by customers.
Immediately after the murders, the service station was sealed off by gardaí.
The bodies and the Avensis car were left at the scene overnight.
The bodies were examined by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis yesterday morning.
They were then taken to Beaumont Hospital and on to the Dublin City Morgue in Marino, north Dublin, for a postmortem.
The Garda Technical Bureau spent yesterday examining the murder scene.
The killings were captured on CCTV, which was being studied by gardaí.