Guerin murdered after leaving Naas District Court

VERONICA Guerin left Naas District Court, after appearing on a speeding charge, at around 12.30 p.m. yesterday, got into herb red Opel Calibra and drove, towards Dublin. On the way she contacted the Sunday In dependent by mobile phone to arrange a meeting to discuss a story.

Some minutes before 1 p.m. she pulled up at the traffic lights at the junction of the Naas Road and Boot Road, roughly equidistant between the Green Isle Hotel and Newlands Cross. She was in the outside lane.

A powerful white motorcycle pulled up alongside her, on the driver's side, between her car and a Ford Escort. The pillion passenger - a "tubby man, aged about 30, with a fair complexion, blue eyes and a moustache" - opened fire with a handgun, shattering the window of Ms Guerin's car. He hit her "five or six times" in the upper body. It is believed she died instantly.

The motorcycle then sped off "towards the Belgard Road, in the Tallaght direction. Both the driver and the passenger were wearing black leather jackets and white crash helmets.

A passing motorist informed the gardai on a mobile phone and they were at the scene within minutes.

The Dublin bound side of the dual carriageway was sealed off. Ms Guerin's car, with her body still inside, was covered with a large crimson blanket.

The headlines at the end of the RTE Radio News at One programme announced that "a woman" had been shot dead.

At around 2 p.m. gardai told Ms Guerin's husband, Mr Graham Turley, that his wife had been, murdered. The couple's seven year old son, Cathal, was with Mr Turley at the time.

Journalists - and local people gathered at the Naas Road, standing outside the Garda tape. Ones male reporter broke down and was led away by colleagues. Ballistics experts and forensic scientists arrived and began an inch by inch examination of the scene.

Father Heber McMahon, a friend of the family who officiated at Ms Guerin's marriage, walked from nearby Scoil Mhuire national school, where he is a chaplain. "It says an awful lot about freedom of speech, doesn't it?" he said. "I just feel so awful for her family."

At 3.30 p.m. steel framed, screens were placed around Ms Guerin's car.

At 3.45, newspaper vendors at Newlands Cross, 500 yards down the Naas Road from where Ms Guerin had been murdered, were selling copies of the Evening Herald with the headline "Veronica Guerin Is Shot Dead".

At 4.30, the gardai held a press conference in Lucan Garda station. Supt Brian O'Higgins, of the Garda Press Office, said he knew Ms Guerin "extremely well and it makes it all the more difficult to accept". He felt "a personal loss", he said.

At 5.30, the Chief State Pathologist, Prof John Harbison, arrived to examine the body at the scene.

At 6 p.m., Veronica Guerin's body was removed to the James Connolly Memorial Hospital, Blanchardstown.