'SERIAL KILLER'
HOW ONE COP KNEW FROM THE START THAT BRUTAL THUG HAYES WAS GUILTY OF MURDER
EVIL Oliver Hayes was on course to become a serial killer, according to a senior detective.
The murderer tried to abduct another woman 10 years before he bludgeoned widow Anne Corcoran to death, the Sunday World can reveal.
The disturbing revelation was confirmed this week when we spoke exclusively to Mrs Corcoran's brother and the first victim's husband and also to the detective who had been watching him for 10 years.
And, only for the quick thinking of Detective Jim Fitzgerald, Hayes would have got away with murder this time.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday World, the seasoned detective based in Bandon, Co Cork described Hayes as a "loner and a weirdo" who had preyed on at least two vulnerable women in the past.
"I knew it was him," the detective said this week. "He was very dangerous. He could have become a serial killer if we hadn't caught him.
"A loner would be a good description of him. A loner and a weirdo."
At the Central Criminal Court in Dublin on Thursday Hayes (60) was found guilty of murdering Anne after abducting her from her farmhouse during a robbery. He had pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
To his neighbours, Oliver Hayes was a quiet bachelor who had moved into their housing estate in the bustling town of Bandon, west Cork.
Dangerous
But to a handful of people just eight miles away, he was a dangerous nutter who had fallen through the cracks of the legal system on many occasions.
And to Detective Jim Fitzgerald, he was the one who would commit murder someday.
His ten previous convictions include the burglary of an 84-year-old woman's house and an attempted abduction of another local woman. In each case, he got the Probation Act or a suspended sentence.
Ten years ago, he tried to force stonemason's wife Anne Hurley into a van.The abduction of Mrs Hurley was eerily similar to that of Mrs Corcoran. Timmy Hurley, a stonemason for the Southern Health Board, said Hayes pounced while his wife, who was then in her 50s, was alone in the house.
"My wife beat him off but, only for the neighbours hearing her screaming, he would have got away with it."
He added: "Poor Anne Corcoran was unlucky. She would probably be alive today if we had got him locked up. But we didn't think of that at the time."
The Hurley family accepted thousands of euro in compensation. Hayes was given a suspended sentence, which he has not yet served.
Detective Fitzgerald said the psycho had pleaded guilty to the attempted abduction of Mrs Hurley, "but he only got a suspended sentence because he agreed to pay compensation".
"I remember the cheque being sent out to the family," the detective said.
Mr Hurley said he and his wife did not go to court to give evidence. "We didn't go to court because we didn't want any bad feeling with the neighbours," he said.
At the time, Hayes was living near the Hurleys in Baurleigh, between Bandon and Kilbrittain. He had grown up there but had spent much of his troubled childhood in foster homes. The eldest of nine children, he had done odd jobs in the area, including working in a piggery and as a petrol pump attendant.
A FAS course enabled him to set up his own business as a painter-decorator and he could finally afford his own home.The house in Cloncool, Bandon, signalled the start of an independent life for Hayes.
But it marked a brutal end to the life of innocent widow Mrs Corcoran. It was here that she bled to death after a savage beating from Hayes. The gruesome crime might never have been solved had it not been for the suspicions of Detective Fitzgerald.
The moment Mrs Corcoran's body was found, the seasoned cop was convinced he knew who had done it and hauled Hayes in for questioning.
"He had kept quiet for 10 years as far as I know - there wasn't even a public order offence," the detective told the Sunday World. "But he suddenly broke out and this time he killed," he said.
Monster Oliver Hayes admitted he had stalked Mrs Corcoran like an animal before abducting her. The Sunday World can reveal that he had been watching the widow for two years before he pounced. Speaking to us at his home in Kilbrittain, west Cork, Mrs Corcoran's brother, Timmy O'Mahoney, revealed that the killer had befriended his sister's dying husband in the local pub.
He said his brother-in-law, farmer Jerry Corcoran, was so fond of Hayes that he used to pick him up most days at his home in Bandon, eight miles away, and drive him to his painting jobs.
Fatal
The killer even made friends with the family dogs - a friendship which was to prove fatal for the widow.
"The dogs didn't protect my sister because they knew Hayes. That's why they let him feed them after he killed her," said Timmy.
Just 18 months after Jerry Corcoran died of cancer, Hayes repaid his friend by murdering his 59-year-old widow. Mr O'Mahony says he fears for the safety of local women when Hayes is released after serving his sentence.
"A man like that can easily kill again. No woman is safe living on her own once he's out."
One of the killer's brothers tried to console Mr O'Mahony recently, he added. "I was over visiting her grave and he came up to me and shook my hand, said he was terribly sorry about my sister dying. That's all."
Fighting back tears, Mr O'Mahoney spoke fondly of his younger sister as he stood at the gate of the terraced cottage in Kilbrittain village where she grew up. He described Anne as "a quiet girl" whose only passion in life was the music of Big Tom.
He said Anne met Jerry Corcoran when she was working as a barmaid in the Munster Arms Hotel in Bandon. She was in her fifties at the time and had been happily single, but gradually fell in love with the local farmer who lived just a few miles down the road.
"They seemed well-suited. Jerry was a nice fella all right. I'd go for a drink with them sometimes, here in the pub [in Kilbrittain]."
A local source told us the cold-blooded killer ignored a request from an inlaw who travelled to Dublin this week to beg him to change his plea from manslaughter to murder.
When he is sentenced in Cork on Wednesday, it will be the end of a two-year ordeal for the family of the victim and her community in West Cork. None of the murderer's family came to support him during the trial. His parents are dead, his eight siblings who helped search for Mrs Corcoran were said to be "disgusted" and his girlfriend had disowned him.
Another local man revealed that Hayes had worked for the painting contractor Mrs Corcoran had hired to decorate her farmhouse the day of her death and was familiar with her house.
Hayes had denied ever knowing Mrs Corcoran in reply to a Garda questionnaire. However, he told his then girlfriend, Josephine Collins, that he had worked with Mrs Corcoran's husband and "sort of knew her".
The monster had even taken part in the search, alongside 300 local volunteers, 50 gardai and five sniffer dog units. He chatted to neighbours about how "terrible" it was that "that woman" had gone missing.
Hayes had just two hobbies: walking and photography. He was also a member of Clonakilty Camera Club. Locals were surprised to find he had a girlfriend, mum-of-one Josephine Collins who lives in Ballinspittle.
Hayes is believed to have got into debt in recent years and began preying on women living alone. During his murder trial he said the Credit Union was chasing him for €10,000 and he had paid nothing off his mortgage for two years when he decided to rob Mrs Corcoran.
Ruthless Hayes trekked eight miles in the dark from his home in Bandon to Mrs Corcoran's remote farmhouse in the townland of Maulnaskimlehane. When he got to the farmhouse, he lurked in wait for the widow. He covered his face with a jacket and baseball cap, then struck. "As she was going for the front door, I caught her from behind and asked her for money. I just put my hand around her neck.
He shoved the widow into the downstairs bathroom and spent the next 10 minutes demanding money. "She said she hadn't any money, that 'twas all in the bank.
Survived
He then tied Mrs Corcoran's hands with washing line. He said it would give him time to get away before she could raise the alarm if she survived. Hayes then put the bound and gagged woman into the boot of her car, tied her legs together with her dog-lead, and then "drove her around", stopping occasionally to demand money.
Finally, he brought her to his terraced house in Clancool Terrace. After half an hour being held hostage in the kitchen, she gave him
her bank pin number and told him where to find her ATM card.
Hayes then hit her in the back of the head four or five times with a stick and twice with a piece of a kitchen worktop until she was
unconscious. He dragged her upstairs, dumped her in a bedroom, and drove back to her farmhouse to get the bank card - and feed her dogs.
He then withdrew €600 - the first of five withdrawals totalling €3,000. Meanwhile, Mrs Corcoran bled to death upstairs.
The murderer checked on her the next morning, and found her lying dead in a pool of blood - then went off to give his girlfriend a lift.
Next day he looked in on the bloodied body again, covered the face with a paper bag - and withdrew a further sum of cash using her ATM card.
Then the callous killer went for a boozing session with members of the local camera club at O'Donovan's Hotel in Clonakilty.
The following morning Hayes wrapped the body in two coal bags, put it in his van and drove it to the woods near Ballinspittle. He put
petrol on the corpse and set fire to it, then covered it with stones. Hayes used some of the money to pay off a mechanic - then went on a skiing holiday with his girlfriend, Josephine Collins, and her son.
He also paid off a debt to Ms Collins's son. Ms Collins ended the relationship as soon as he became a murder suspect.
"This village was known for moving statues, now it's notorious as the place where that lady's body was burned and buried. The place has been desecrated," a local man said this week.
Send Article to a Friend
Back to Top of Page
NO HOPE FOR TEENS LEFT IN THE 'CARE' OF GOVERNMENT
We strive to protect our kids from monsters in society ...but then we leave them with the worst abuser of all: THE STATE
FOR generations of children, institutional care was run like a military regime where abandoned, orphaned and abused kids were given a number and ordered to march like little soldiers to the beat of a drum played by vicious and cruel masters.
They were beaten for wetting their beds, raped by evil paedophiles and subjected to unthinkable punishments for the tiniest offence.
Letterfrack, the Magdalene Laundries, Artane and Daingean are just a few of the institutions from a long list of shame that has emerged from the stories of horror of those who survived.
Cold, grey buildings run by evil men and women who hid behind the Catholic Church and its iron grip on the psyche of a nation.
Buried
Some never made it out alive and were buried without a headstone in the lonely grounds.
Countless, so deeply haunted by the memories, took their own lives. Thousands still struggle with the physical and mental scars they will bear like a cross until the day they die.
But we turned a corner, did we not? Helplines, support groups, inquiries, a raft of compensation claims and a nation vowing that this would never happen again.
Weren't we great to finally leave all that hurt and sorrow in our past? Didn't we learn vital lessons in the care of children? Wasn't it the right thing to do to move forward and to take the responsibility of the most vulnerable away from the religious orders and give it over to the State where it would be properly handled and monitored?
Tragically no, no and no.
We have learned nothing and in an effort to move so far away from the brutal handling of children in the past, the Government has stood over a new regime which is just as rotten to its core.
That regime is run as a polar opposite to what we had in the past.
Gone are the chains, the padlocked doors, the prison-style uniforms and the repressive rules and regulations. In their place is an open-door policy that allows troubled teenagers come and go as they please.
These children make their own decisions while a system that is supposed to protect our most vulnerable, instead exposes them to the very elements of society from which they should be protected.
The majority of children and teenagers in care are there because they have been abused, abandoned, beaten or because they have mental disorders that mean their families cannot cope with them.
Many have not experienced the security and love that children so desperately need in their formative years to develop into 'normal' adults.
This week the failure of the State to care for these vulnerable young girls and boys has been laid bare by the story of Tracey Fay.
The 18-year-old died in a disused coal bunker from a drug overdose eight years ago after spending four years in the 'care' of the State. She was only 14 when her mother signed her over to the Health Board. In the course of that 'care', she was seen by 44 different social workers, gave birth to two children, went missing 23 times and spent 255 nights in 20 different B&Bs.
A report leaked by Fine Gael, which sat for years gathering dust, addresses the "missed opportunities" and the "abject failure" of the then Eastern Health Board in providing the necessary care for a teenager.
Now it seems that a total of 17 similar reports have been left on shelves in the HSE and that a total of 23 children have died in State care over the past decade.
The cases include four suicides, eight overdoses, a hit and run and a 14-year-old killed by a brutal paedophile who strangled her because he had got her pregnant.
Her name was Melissa Mahon and last year violent thug Ronnie Dunbar was found guilty of her manslaughter.
Body
Her remains were found on a lonely Sligo shoreline 18 months after she went missing while in the care of the HSE.
During his trial it was alleged that Dunbar had a relationship with Melissa and often slept with her at his home in Rathbraughan Park in the town. It was claimed that she was pregnant with his child when he killed her on his bed in September 2006.
During her time in care she spent eight out of 16 nights missing from the Lis Na Og care home, mainly in Ronnie Dunbar's bed. On one occasion she was caught in bed with two older men in a doss house.
Amazingly her disappearance did not prompt a major hunt by the HSE when she vanished. Kim Donovan was just a year older than
Melissa when she was found dead from a suspected heroin overdose at a B&B in Dublin in August 2000. Her body was found four weeks after she went missing from the care of the East Coast Health Board.
The public only know of their existence because of their untimely deaths.Those who are currently in care are faceless children caught up in a regime which is held together by repressive, bureaucratic red tape.
Many journalists have heard stories over the years which we have been unable to report. Some have been relayed by friends or families too terrified for their stories to get out in case it jeopardises any future hopes a kid may have to get into better units. Other stories have simply hit a dead end with the standard HSE reply: 'We cannot comment on specific cases'.
I have personally had reports of troubled teenagers absconding far more times than tragic Tracey Fay ever did. Some have ran away 50 times, others hundreds. Many disappear in a taxi ordered by their care workers to go out and just never return.
The Gardai are contacted and inevitably the kids are picked up drunk, off their heads on drugs and on many occasions in the company of adult men who prey on these care homes and their easy-going attitudes. Often, men will pick up young teenagers outside the homes and ply them with drink pretending to be their friends.
Underage girls in HSE care are regularly given the morning-after pill and taken to STD clinics after such nights out. It is expensive to house children in secure units, so multiple occupancy units are often used exposing one troubled teenager to another - a recipe for disaster.
It is estimated that housing a teenager in a single occupancy unit can cost upwards of €1,100 a week. Costs for the care of seriously disturbed teenagers can run to €500,000 a year. The HSE employs a private firm Fresh Start, which has 18 residential facilities around the country, to house some of its charges, while others are kept within the State-owned facilities.
In recent years, severe cases have been sent to the UK and to the Boys Town facility in the US - a last bastion of hope for many but an opportunity few will ever get to turn their lives around.
Nobody needs to be told that the HSE is a grinding, over-staffed, inefficient and useless service.
This week, however, the reality of its utter incompetency was laid bare by the smiling picture of one young girl, lost to a system.
This week, Minister for Children Barry Andrews insisted that Tracey died because "too many people were looking after her".
In the words of Alan Shatter TD: "Tracey died, not because too many people were looking after her, but because too many people failed to do their jobs in protecting her."
Send Article to a Friend
Back to Top of Page
THE filthy house in a Bandon council estate where Anne Corcoran spent her last, most terrifying hours, is derelict, its front door boarded up, its lawn overgrown, furniture blocking the windows.
A NUMBER of health board officials, who are to be investigated for their role in the Roscommon House of Horrors, also made decisions in the notorious McColgan and Kelly Fitzgerald cases in Sligo and Mayo.
Neither the Board or the doctor admitted liability in reaching the settlement. It is 16 years since that same Health Board, which is now the HSE West, and some of the same officials, failed a 15 year old girl called Kelly Fitzgerald.
THIS is the photograph that proves crime hasn't paid for the wife of crime godfather Peter 'Fatso' Mitchell.
His marriage to Walsh also came to an end and she moved back to Dublin. A local source said the mum-of-two has been keeping a "low profile". "She has been back in her ma's flat for over a year.