Ruth Lawrence found guilty of murder of two men in 2014
Alison O’Riordan
11 years on from when the bodies of two missing Dublin men were found bound and buried in a shallow grave on a lake island in the midlands, the only person to face trial over their deaths - Ruth Lawrence - has been found guilty of their murders.
The Central Criminal Court jury by a majority verdict of 11-1, agreed with the prosecution's case that 46-year-old Lawrence shot and worked "as a unit" with her boyfriend, South African national Neville van der Westhuizen, to murder drug dealer Eoin O'Connor (32), after they had lured him to their home.
The prosecution contended that Anthony Keegan (33) was shot by van der Westhuizen, and the jury accepted their argument by a majority verdict of 10-2 that there was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he and Lawrence also acted as a team in that murder and were equally liable for the outcome.
The jury heard that Mr O'Connor sold drugs to van der Westhuizen, who owed the deceased man in the region of €70,000.
The trial heard evidence that Lawrence had asked about taking a boat out on Lough Sheelin - where the deceased's bodies were eventually found - the day before the men were last seen alive.
The prosecution had also told the jury that the key witness's account of an alleged admission by Lawrence to shooting Mr O'Connor was corroborated by pathology evidence.
Lawrence, who did not give evidence in the trial and was never interviewed by gardaí, fled to South Africa in the aftermath of the murders and was extradited to Ireland in May 2023.
The trial heard that while in the Rainbow Nation, she feared she would become a victim of human trafficking and had stayed in women's refuges.
Van der Westhuizen is currently serving a 15-year sentence in Durban, for murder, attempted murder, and kidnapping in a separate case.
An application to return him to Ireland to face trial will take place when he has finished serving his sentence in South Africa.
Lawrence, who is originally from Clontarf in Dublin but with an address at Patricks Cottage, Ross, Mountnugent in Co Meath, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Keegan and Mr O'Connor at an unknown location within the State on a date between April 22nd 2014 and May 26th 2014, both dates inclusive.
There were three verdicts the jury could return in relation to each of the two murder charges against Lawrence, namely: guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of assisting an offender, or not guilty.
The jury was told by the trial judge that the latter verdict was "theoretical".
The panel of four men and eight women began considering their verdicts last Thursday and had deliberated for six hours and 50 minutes when the trial judge gave them the option of reaching a majority verdict on one or both counts, provided at least ten of them agreed.
The trial had heard that two protected witnesses - father and daughter Jason and Stacey Symes - came forward to An Garda Siochana in 2014 and gave voluntary statements about the involvement of Lawrence and van der Westhuizen in the murders of the two men.
Stacey Symes gave evidence to the trial that Lawrence told her that she had shot Mr O'Connor "but it went wrong", so van der Westhuizen "took over". The witness also said that she and her father were asked to help move the bodies of the two men.
Lawrence's defence team claimed that the Symes - the two key witnesses in the case - had painted themselves as "innocents abroad" and had downplayed their own roles in the incident. Patrick Gageby SC alongside Sarah Connolly BL, defending, had told the jury that the Symes had: "played the system and they tried to play you".
The jurors however disagreed with Lawrence's argument that the Symes could not be trusted to convict her of murdering the two men.
Instead the jurors found that Lawrence had assisted in a concrete way in the killing of the two men on the basis of joint enterprise.
Michael O'Higgins SC with Jane Horgan-Jones BL, prosecuting, told the jury in his closing address that Lawrence and her boyfriend had acted as "a unit and a tag team" to "lure" Mr O'Connor to their home to murder him in a "highly calculated" crime.
The State contended that van der Westhuizen also shot Mr Keegan while "acting as a team" with Lawrence, making both guilty of murder.
Concluding his charge to the panel last Thursday, Mr Justice Hunt said there was plainly evidence that the accused intervened on the part of her boyfriend in the aftermath of the murders.
He said there was no ambiguity about this and it supported the alternative verdict of assisting an offender, if the jury was not satisfied with a guilty of murder verdict.
However, Mr Justice Hunt said the prosecution wanted the jury to go further than this. "They say not only is it evidence of Neville's complicity, it is evidence she was covering up her own complicity as part of the plan".
