Three young men who disappeared in Belfast during the 1970s and whose bodies were recovered in Louth and Monaghan last summer each died of a single gunshot to the head, Dublin City Coroner's Court heard yesterday.
The jury of three men and five women returned verdicts of unlawful killing in the inquests into the deaths of Edward Gerard Molloy (known as Eamonn) (22) of Limestone Road; John Patrick McClory (18) of Gartree Place; and Brian McKinney (22) of Knockdu Park, all in Belfast.
Identification was by clothing and jewellery and DNA matching of tissue with blood samples supplied by their mothers.
Opening the hearing the Dublin City Coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, told the jury the inquests were being held under the Coroner's Act of 1962 and the Criminal Justice (Location of Remains) Act of 1999.
Ms Kathleen Doran said she married Mr Eamonn Molloy in Dublin in October 1973. They returned to Belfast early in 1975 and her husband went missing in May of that year. She remarried in 1989 on the presumption that he was dead. She said she was shattered when she was informed that his body had been found.
In a statement, Ms Susan Molloy, who was too ill to attend the inquest, said her son called to her home in May 1975 and, though she invited him and his wife to dinner the following Sunday, she never saw him again.
Another of her sons, Anthony, was murdered by a loyalist gang in June 1975 and she knew if Eamonn was alive he would have attended the funeral.
Det. Garda Gerard Murray, Dundalk, said the body was found in a coffin under a tree in a graveyard at Faughart, just south of the Border on May 28th last.
The State Pathologist, Prof John Harbison, said the skeletal remains had a jacket draped over the head and tied around the neck with a neck-tie. There was damage to the top three vertebrae, the lower jaw and the right of the skull caused by a bullet. The cause of death was brain and spinal laceration due to a single bullet wound to the back of the neck. Death would have been instantaneous.
Sgt Patrick McMeel, Carrickmacross, said the two bodies were exhumed from a shallow grave after more than a month of digging and searching in the area.
Prof Harbison said he attended the exhumation of the bodies which were found with their heads close together and also carried out a forensic examination of the bodies.
In the case of Mr McClory, he discovered an exit wound but no entry wound for a bullet and concluded that death was due to laceration of the brain. In the case of Mr McKinney, he found a circular wound at the back of the skull and a .22 bullet in the cranium cavity.
Death also was due to laceration of the brain and in each case the injury would have been immediately lethal.
He also told the families that it was probable the men had died where their bodies were found.