GARDAÍ BELIEVE 16-year-old Melanie McCarthy-McNamara was fatally wounded in west Dublin when a gunman targeting another man in a drive-by shooting botched his aim and shot into the wrong window of the car she was in.
She is believed to be the youngest ever victim of gangland crime.
The teenager was sitting in the rear passenger side of a silver Nissan Almera outside a house in Brookview Way, Tallaght, at 10.35pm on Tuesday when another car carrying a gunman pulled alongside and shots were fired from a shotgun.
Detectives believe a man sitting in the front passenger seat of the Almera was the intended target but the gunman opened fire just before he drew level with the front window. He mistakenly discharged his shots into the rear passenger side of the car, fatally wounding Ms McCarthy-McNamara, before the stolen black Hyundai Santa Fe he was travelling in sped from the scene.
The three men in the car with the victim rushed her to Tallaght General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 1am.
Family members of the dead girl, who was a settled Traveller, yesterday gathered at a house on Drumcairn Avenue, Tallaght, where she had been living, and told The Irish Times she was “a complete innocent”.
“She never did nothing to nobody,” said one member of the group. “You’d never even see her having an argument with somebody. She wasn’t involved in any feuding; nothing like that.”
Garda sources said some of the men the dead teenager had been mixing with have been involved in drug-related violence and family feuding in recent years in Tallaght. They believe Tuesday night’s attack was part of that violence.
Some of the men Ms McCarthy-McNamara had been associating with are members of the Travelling community with strong links to another family-based drug-dealing gang from Tallaght. This large group has close ties with the McCarthy-Dundon gang in Limerick, where Ms McCarthy-McNamara’s family is originally from.
Arising from these links, gardaí fear Tuesday’s murder may prove the beginning of a new gang feud.
A team of 40 detectives and uniformed gardaí held a case conference at Tallaght Garda station yesterday, headed by Chief Supt John Manley.
Afterwards he said his team was determined to solve the killing and he believed the killers would be caught. However, he said gardaí needed the public’s help.
“This was a particularly heinous crime involving a young girl of 16 years of age. I would appeal to the community to reflect on this and to take a step back and to provide whatever assistance they can give us to investigate this crime.”
Minister for Justice and Defence Alan Shatter said that the killing was “deplorable”.
“All violent deaths are shocking but the killing of a young person especially so,” he said.
Gardaí believe shot girl (16) caught up in feud: page 3