Brendan O'Donnell

         23year old Brendan O'Donnell died of " natural causes" in prison on the 24th July 1997. This was the original explanation given by the Irish "Justice Dept" and the Eastern Health Board for the untimely death of Brendan O'Donnell . However , an inquest held in Nov 1997 came up with a new diagnosis , no less controversial ! The new explanation given by the Dublin Coroners Court was; " O'Donnell died of heart failure following a "reaction to medication he had been receiving in prison "!                                  

                                        Incredible!!!!!!!

 I wonder if this is a regular occurrence among criminals who have received medication in prison? There can be no doubt that O'Donnell was an embarrassment to many in the state institutions of Health and Justice and his untimely death certainly eased the pressure and took them out of the spotlight  once and for all.

They added an addendum; "there was no suggestion of any blame being attached to medical staff over his death" . Ahmmmmm......

         Well then, who was to blame for the untimely death of a young man in his prime years? Questions are still unanswered to this day!!!!!

                 His death by "natural causes"  or "overdose of proscribed medications "ended the tormented life of an abused child ,the life of a thief ,voyeur and generally an all round social misfit! 

             He was sentenced on the 2 nd April 1996 to life in prison for the murders of Imelda and Liam Riney , and Ft .Joe Walsh on dates between the 30th April and 7th May 1994!

           In 1994  Ireland was unaccustomed to the kind of senseless brutality which was symptomatic of the O'Donnell murders! They were carried out coldly and without any pity for the woman nor her three year old child , Liam! The complete absence of pity or human compassion could describe O'Donnell's mental condition! After O'Donnell was finally caught and was questioned by detectives and doctors, he would gleefully tell of the killing of Imelda Riney . He said it made him feel good and laughed as he described how he abducted and shot Ft. Walsh!

There can be no doubt that Brendan O'Donnell was a very troubled person and had a history of violence and larceny but there are many imponderables surrounding this case!

         Brendan O'Donnell was born into a poor rural family living on the shores of Lough Derg in east Clare. His father was a bully who was in the habit of beating up his wife and took a strong dislike to Brendan! Brendan's mother was said to be over protective towards him and this led to what was described as an unhealthy relationship between mother and son!  His mother would sit beside Brendan at his school desk ,in the classroom, until he was seven because he could not bear to leave her! This over dependence on his mother became only too apparent when his mother died of cancer when he was nine years old! Brendan could not cope with the loss of his mother and she was no longer there to shield him from his brutal father. When he saw his mother laid into her grave he imagined she was still alive and was being smothered by the clay which thrown on top. Later he would be found in the mornings lying on top of his mothers grave on the cold earth where he had lay all through the frosty night!

In the following years he lived with his grandmother Mary Quinn and other times with his sister Anne Marie. After his mothers death it has been verified by Anne Marie , his grandmother , family doctor and a psychiatrist that Brendan was physically abused by his father. Brendan began to develop into a troublesome juvenile with a likening for firearms and when he was 14 he stole a gun and was prosecuted and convicted of possessing a weapon with the intent to endanger life! He was sent to Trinity House  in Dublin for young offenders where it was said he tried to kill himself with an overdose of tablets.

There are hearsay accounts that Brendan had visitations from the devil and he had spent many sleepless nights tormented by night terrors. The reasons for these devilish visitations are unclear; whether induced through the mental anguish  of an unhappy child in a violent family environment  or from "other" localised presences. I mention this because it is becoming clearer, in this new information age of the 21st century , that devil worship has been widely practised in every county in Ireland, for centuries!!

       Brendan O'Donnell had a younger brother called Aidan , and after his mother death Aidan was sent to Wolverhampton in England to live with his relatives. After his release from Trinity House O'Donnell went to England at some stage. Whether to live with relatives or not, is unclear! While he lived in England he again served a period of time in a young offenders home and on his release  he returned in March 1994 through Belfast  to his local area in East Clare. Brendan was now aged about 20 and he started on a campaign of vandalism and destruction  in East Clare.

    At this particular time in the life of Brendan O'Donnell something , unexplained to us, changed Brendan from a troublesome juvenile into an apparent "devil possessed" unfeeling killer! I pose this question at this point because , as is normal in many murder trials, the whole truth of what transpired is sometimes overlooked, unintentionally or otherwise! I ask the question now; what changed Brendan O'Donnell into a "possessed" killer? Was it a self induced mental leap into the abyss or were there "outside forces" which or who spurred Brendan into this evil madness?

Through my own research in Ireland and my personal experiences I know that many wealthy individuals have experimented and dabbled in the "dark arts" of witchcraft and devil worship! It is known that when people get deeply into witchcraft and devil worship they are transformed into unfeeling killers ! This happens slowly by  desensitising the person as the result of watching "snuff" movies or actually taking part in ritual murders or witnessing murders. I also know that there are satanic cults throughout Ireland which are fronting as "religious Christian sects " and they are openly trying to recruit the young and susceptible and people from the AA(alcoholics anonymous).

          Brendan O'Donnell uttered several curious remarks to medical and police investigators after he was captured in May 1994! " He said , "the devil tried to save his soul", and "the IRA was coming to break in and release him from prison". The only evidence I can produce for the last remarks was from a radio program on which Brenda Power, a reporter for the Dublin newspaper,The Tribune, described Brendan O'Donnell's utterances during his trial in court in 1996. These remarks were never put into print, to the best of my knowledge! What must wonder why?

NB. If Brenda Power disputes my information , she is free to put on the right track! 

      I will examine more closely O'Donnell's remarks in later chapters.

       NB.It should be pointed out that there is a undeniable  absence of information regarding the O'Donnell murders! There is no account of the O'Donnell murders on the internet on "any" of the Irish search engines ,nor through the Irish Times archives on the net! The O'Donnell murders seem to have been completely written out of the annals of Irish history. The only source for information has been through the Gilbert Library in Dublin, and this produced only meagre results!

The question has to be asked; "Is this deliberate? And if so what are the reasons for this censorship? Are there dark secrets in the O'Donnell murders which are not evident at this time?"

                    Brendan O'Donnell was about 20years old in April 1994 when he began his murderous campaign. He was living rough in the East Clare area where he stole cars and burnt them out.He robbed and ransacked houses and finally stole a gun from a farmer . He fled after police tried to apprehend him at a caravan park at Mountshannon in County Clare on the 27th April 1994.

      On the 29th April 1994, O'Donnell abducted Imelda Riney and her 3year old son Liam from their remote home and made Imelda drive to Cregg Woods where he was to shoot her and her baby son dead with a .22 rifle. It is unclear to me, because of the lack of precise information, whether or not Brendan O'Donnell had been personally involved with Imelda Riney before the events of late April 1994.  After his capture O'Donnell was to allege that he and Imelda Riney had been involved in a passionate relationship. This was denied by members of Imelda's family.

Two days after Imelda and Liam Riney were abducted her former husband, Val Ballance visited Imelda's remote home and realised something was wrong and reported mother and son missing on the 1st May 1994.

NB.( Take a note of the date, and consider it's significance; 1st May , or Mayday is a Satanic festival date!)

                O'Donnell went to the home of Ft Joe Walsh in Eyrecourt , County Galway on the night of the 3rd May 1994 and forced the priest to drive to Cregg Woods where Imelda and Liam Riney had already been shot dead. Ft Walsh's absence at morning mass on the following day was put down to the priest visiting friends elsewhere in the county. A taxi driver reported seeing O'Donnell pushing Ft Walsh's car and at around the same time Imelda Riney's car was found burnt out.

NB. Two things strike me as curious in these accounts; why did O'Donnell burn the car out? Was he aware of the need to destroy forensic evidence? Had he the intelligence to take such precautions? Burning cars which were used in murders has been common practice by Irish and Loyalist paramilitaries in Ulster and in Eire for many years.

     Secondly, was it only a coincidence that he chose to abduct Ft Walsh or had he known the priest before the fateful days of May 3rd and 4th?

The police decided that the sighting of O'Donnell pushing Ft Walsh's car was linked in some way to the burnt out car of Imelda Riney and set up a security cordon around the area and called in the Air Corps.

      On May 6th 1994, Ft Walsh's car was found burnt out on the shores of Lough Derg . Between the 6th May and the 7th May  O'Donnell abducted two more people , a woman and a man! However, by then the police had closed in on him .O'Donnell was arrested by police on the 7th May 1994  between Woodford and Whitegate after a chase through woods and mountains.

So ended a week long spree of brutal murders and chase which ended in the deaths of two adults and a baby boy. Had he been at large for much longer he would probably have added to that total!

         The body of Ft Walsh was found on the 7th May in Cregg Woods. On the 8th May the bodies of Imelda and her son were found in a shallow grave in the same Cregg Woods ,only 150yards from where Ft Walsh was found.

 From the time of his capture onto the time of his trial ,O'Donnell underwent a series of mental and physical breakdowns. In January 1995 he cut his wrists and it was reported in Aug 1995 that a fellow prisoner tried to strangle him. His trial started prematurely in Jan !996 but had to be adjourned  because he became ill. He made another  apparently "genuine" attempt at suicide in March 1996  when he tried to strangle himself .The trial eventually restarted and it lasted 53 days, the longest at that time in the history of the Irish state.

         The details and events of the trial of Brendan O'Donnell described briefly, as firm information is in short supply.

                   The defence  described O'Donnell's early life, painting a picture of paternal abuse and an over indulgent mother. According to one psychiatrist O'Donnell was described as a he-bephrenic schizophrenic; the lawyer explained that in layman's terms ,"he was as mad as it was possible to be!" Yet other psychiatrists declared that O'Donnell was Not schizophrenic!

       O'Donnell described how he spent the night in Cregg Woods with Ft Walsh and he ate raw eggs and cake which were gifts from parishioners to the priest. He said that the priest pleaded with him and offered O'Donnell money so he could return to England. He then marched Ft Walsh into the wood and told him to kneel down and he then shot him. Again, according to one writer , the forensic evidence contradicted O'Donnell's testimony.    

One article says that O'Donnell intercepted Ft Walsh in his car while another said that he spent the night of the 3rd /4th May at the priests home at Eyrecourt and then took the priest to Cregg Woods.

        There seems to be glaring contradictions between O'Donnell's testimonies of the killings of the Riney's and Ft Walsh and the actual forensic and physical realities.

         O'Donnell's testimony of the murders of Imelda and Liam Riney was shocking and beyond the ability for rational comprehension of normal people. He said that on the 29th April he made Imelda drive to Cregg Woods and he told her he was going to shoot her ,whereupon Imelda tried to take the gun from him. The struggle ended and O'Donnell shot her in the eye. He then brought the 3 year old over beside his mother and shot him in the side of the head. He said that this made him "feel very happy , a good feeling"

NB, These descriptions of the innermost thoughts , and feelings of euphoria  which killers experience after taking the lives of people are typical of pre-programed ,brainwashed ,mind controlled killers.  There is evidence  that the CIA have experimented with mind control using drugs and hypnosis. They have also used witchcraft and devil worship to induce fear and control over their pre-programed killers. Through their experiments with child abuse victims they discovered that they could produce Multiple Personalities or multiple compartments in the minds of the abused children . With the help of WW11 nazis  such as Dr Mengele , the CIA  and their experimental mind control research program , MKULTRA , produced MPD human guinea pigs who would obey their controllers with the use of key phrases or "triggers"! There are people who say that Lee Harvey Oswald  was one such CIA mind control experiment! Others say that Timothy McVeigh was another CIA .MPD victim!

        Sean Sellers, self proclaimed satanist and Born Again Christian shot his parents ! He declared that he murdered them because he got involved with a Satanic cult! Sellers demonstrated the same indifference to human emotions and apparent euphoria and elation after the killing of his mother and father ! The same euphoria was evident in the Brendan O'Donnell case! The pattern is the same in both cases, witchcraft and the claims of spiritual possession is apparent in both!

                        The 53 day trial finally ended on the 2nd April 1996 when O'Donnell was found guilty of murder on a 10-2 verdict! The dissenting jurors found him guilty but insane!

         Brendan O'Donnell was sentenced to life in prison!        

  On the 24th July  1997, Brendan O'Donnel died of "natural causes" or an "overdose of proscribed medications"in prison at the age of 23 !

 Strangely enough no-one in Ireland has questioned this extremely incredible coroner's report! What were the causes for a young man , in the prime of his life ,to "die of natural causes", or from proscribed medications?

There have "other" curious reports from Mr John Harbison, the official state coroner!             .

     Ft .Fortune died from a cocktail of alcohol and drugs just before he was to appear in court on 66 charges of child abuse made by 5 of his victims! ( identical to the O'Donnell case!)

  Ft Brendan Smyth died in prison  from an apparent "heart attack " where he was spending time on multiple child abuse charges! 

       PS.I decided to write this article on the O'Donnell murders because I discovered there were many unanswered questions surrounding this case . Also, I found that there are no articles or information on the Brendan O'Donnell murders on the internet! My only source has been the Gilbert Business Library in Dublin. I hope this article will be of use to whoever is interested in this case! 

Copyright of Jim Cairns Kilkenny Ireland

Controversial book - "Disappeared off the face of the earth"!