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Pushed to Death (Fatal Fall Murder or Accident) - Season 1 - Episode 01: Betrayal in the Backwoods
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00:05A
00:06fatal fall at a newlyweds home in Ireland.
00:09Hi, I need an ambulance.
00:11There's a voice out of the phone down the stairs.
00:13Who is she conscious?
00:14I don't think, what can I do?
00:15I don't think she's breathing.
00:16A young woman's life cut short
00:18just six months after getting married.
00:21She was a beautiful, caring person
00:24and what happened was absolutely shocking.
00:27Was it simply a tragic accident?
00:30They find Mary at the foot of the stairs.
00:33She's covered with a heavy duvet
00:34and she's bleeding from her nose and mouth.
00:37Or murder.
00:39Within minutes of actually seeing Mary's body,
00:42I knew there was something far wrong here.
00:44I said, you may sharpen your pencil.
00:46We have a murder investigation.
01:17Mary Gough was born on the 22nd of December 1973,
01:22in Drogheda in County Lou.
01:25She was born to a large Catholic family of five children.
01:30Her parents were Marie and James
01:32and Mary was the only daughter of the family
01:35and she was described as laid back, independent
01:39and really friendly and the heart and soul of the family.
01:44When Mary was growing up,
01:46Pat Murray was a local police officer
01:48who would later get to know Mary's family well.
01:52Mary's family were all very close.
01:55Her father had died when she was very young
01:57and I guess the fact that she lost her dad
02:00brought the family even closer.
02:03She shone as a person
02:05who had a degree of love and compassion,
02:08was just a downright lovely person.
02:11And our mother, Marie, would say
02:13that she was her best friend.
02:18She went to the local secondary school
02:21and she had the aspirations of all young women of her age.
02:25She wanted to meet someone, get married,
02:27have children, raise a family,
02:28do the things that most normal people would like to do.
02:32In her late teens, Mary met a man
02:34who she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
02:38In the early 1990s, when Mary left school,
02:41she got a job in a pub called The Huntsman
02:43and it was there that she met a man called Colin Whelan.
02:46Colin was a guy from a similar area to Mary
02:49and he was slightly older than her.
02:51She was 19 years old at the time
02:53and it became very apparent early on
02:57that the two of them hit it off
02:58and they were quite close.
03:00He was very amenable to Mary's friends
03:03and he was a good looking guy.
03:06He was over six foot.
03:07He was a good catch, let's say.
03:11Colin was an impressive individual.
03:14He went to Dundalk Institute of Technology
03:18and there he acquired a qualification
03:21in computer science.
03:23And after that, he acquired a job
03:26in Irish Permanent Building Society
03:28to do programming for them.
03:32Mary's career at a law firm was also taking off
03:35and the future looked bright for Colin and Mary.
03:38But in the mid-1990s,
03:40their relationship hit a sudden rough patch.
03:46In 1995, Colin broke up for a period of time with Mary.
03:50She was heartbroken and confided in her mother
03:53and she really was devastated.
03:56And Colin, at that stage, said he wanted to break it off.
03:59He didn't want to see her again.
04:01But as things progressed, they got back together again
04:04and it appeared to everybody,
04:07Mary's family and Colin's family,
04:10that the relationship was going in the right direction.
04:14And he proposed in 1998 for them to get married.
04:18Go as far as you don't marry
04:19and then we'll get your sort of...
04:21On the 9th of September in 2000,
04:24Mary and Colin were married.
04:26On the day, Mary was quite nervous,
04:28but she was comforted by her older brother
04:30who walked her down the aisle.
04:33The newlyweds quickly settled into married life.
04:36They moved into an area called Balbrigan.
04:37It's 20 miles north of Dublin.
04:40And there, they renovated a new house together.
04:43Newlyweds Mary and Colin had a lot to look forward to
04:46as they embarked on their new life together.
04:51But just six months after their wedding,
04:54at 12.16am on March 1, 2001,
04:57an emergency call was made by Colin.
05:01Hi, I need an ambulance.
05:03My wife's had to fall down the stairs.
05:06Okay, is she conscious?
05:07I don't think so. What can I do?
05:08I don't think she's breathing.
05:09Can you see her chest moving?
05:10I don't think she's bleeding really badly
05:11from her nose or something.
05:13Okay, can you see her chest moving up the bend?
05:14Hold on.
05:17No, no.
05:18You can't? No.
05:19I can't.
05:19Okay, all poor men.
05:21I need you to keep on breathing into your wife, okay?
05:23Hello.
05:24Is she breathing at all?
05:26No, there's nothing.
05:28The ambulance is too long.
05:29The ambulance is on.
05:30We're also a fire engine on the way out, okay?
05:32Okay.
05:3520 minutes later,
05:36the paramedics and the fire brigade arrive.
05:39They find Mary at the foot of the stairs.
05:42She's covered with a heavy duvet
05:45and she's bleeding from her nose and mouth.
05:48Colin Whelan was stood over his wife's body in a daze.
05:52He was asking paramedics, is Mary dead or alive?
05:55As first responders tended to Mary, they asked Colin what had happened.
06:02Colin claimed that Mary's sleeve from her dressing arm
06:05must have got caught on the banister and that's what caused her to fall
06:09because there was a tear on the sleeve area.
06:12The paramedics found Mary in cardiac arrest.
06:14They began CPR on her in the ambulance as they rushed her towards Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
06:21Colin followed the ambulance and after Mary's family were informed of her accident,
06:27they rushed to the hospital to be with their daughter.
06:32But when they arrived to the hospital, they were told that the doctors could do nothing more
06:38and Mary was pronounced dead.
06:44As Colin and Mary's family processed the devastating news
06:48of 27-year-old Mary Gough's tragic, fatal fall,
06:52the police, known in Ireland as the Garda, were notified of her passing.
06:59At the time, Pat Mary was a detective sergeant in nearby Balbriggan.
07:05Following standard procedure for all sudden deaths in Ireland,
07:09he was instructed to investigate how Mary had died.
07:14At this stage, Colin Whelan had made it known
07:17that it was only himself and his wife that were in the house
07:20and she fell down the stairs.
07:22Colin was then interviewed as a witness
07:25to explain exactly what had happened.
07:28Colin relayed to the Garda in a statement
07:31that he was in watching the TV.
07:35His wife had gone up to have a shower.
07:37After a period of time, he heard,
07:39thump, thump, thump, and he opened the sitting room door
07:43and there on the bottom of the stairs was Mary.
07:46And she was unresponsive.
07:49Colin's witness statement suggested Mary's death was the result
07:53of a tragic, accidental fall.
07:56But after speaking to staff at the hospital
07:59where Mary was pronounced dead,
08:01officers had more questions for Colin.
08:05At Beaumont Hospital, nurse Galvan went over to sympathise with Colin
08:09and she noticed his shirt opened and she could see scratch marks.
08:15And a superintendent, Thomas Gallagher, a very experienced detective,
08:19spoke with Colin and he was asked, what were they?
08:22And he tried to brush them away and he said, oh, when she flailed out of me,
08:27she must have scratched me.
08:29But that's the first time he ever said that,
08:31because that was never an issue on the 999 call he had made.
08:35He had told her that she wasn't breathing, she was unresponsive.
08:39But he changed his story when he saw the scratch marks.
08:43As a result of the unusual marks on Colin,
08:47a post-mortem was ordered to verify Mary's cause of death
08:51and their home was cordoned off.
08:54Given what nurse Galvan had seen
08:56and what Tom Gallagher, the superintendent, had witnessed,
08:59the scratches on him,
09:01he thought it best that the house should be preserved
09:05on the basis that if Colin Sweelan's story was not true,
09:09at least they were able to have the house examined.
09:16After Mary Goff's fatal fall down the stairs at the home
09:20she shared with husband Colin Whelan,
09:23police continued to investigate whether her death was an accident,
09:27as Colin had claimed.
09:29As part of procedure,
09:31they carried out a background check on Colin.
09:35He was a normal guy,
09:37a good job,
09:38well thought of in work.
09:41And there was nothing in Colin's past
09:43that anyone should be concerned about in his relationship with Mary.
09:47As far as her family were concerned,
09:49and his family,
09:50they had a perfect marriage,
09:52they were very happy together.
09:55The day after Mary died,
09:57a state pathologist carried out the post-mortem on Mary's body.
10:02I'm Mary Cassidy, and I was a forensic pathologist on call when Mary Goff died.
10:09I was brought in because if there was something unusual about a death,
10:14the state pathology department would be asked to investigate.
10:18Usually in the first instance when I hear about a death, there's very little information available.
10:23And I don't seek information because I would rather go in and make up my own mind about what I
10:28think happened.
10:30Within minutes of actually seeing Mary's body, I knew there was something far wrong here.
10:35This wasn't an accidental death. This wasn't a death full of a simple fall down the stairs.
10:41I didn't see the normal bumps and scrapes on the arms and the legs that I would have expected in
10:47the circumstances.
10:48What I did notice was that Mary's face was discolored.
10:51Normally after death, the face is rather pale.
10:55Mary's face was not pale.
10:57Mary's face was a blue-purple color.
10:59When I looked at the neck, I could see that there was a distinct line from the neck down.
11:05The skin was the pale color I would normally have expected.
11:09Mid-neck upwards, there was this purple-blue discoloration of the skin.
11:14And that was immediately concerning.
11:16She had small pinpoint hemorrhages, we call these petechial hemorrhages.
11:20And I noticed them in and around the eyes.
11:23I then proceeded to do a neck dissection.
11:26This is a very detailed examination.
11:29And I examined the neck layer by layer.
11:31And then I get to the skeleton of the neck.
11:34And that's your Adam's apple, the larynx.
11:38But it was the bone above that, the hyoid bone I found, was broken.
11:44Injuries to the neck structures are not common in accidental faults.
11:48Downstairs, because you've got a tumbling motion.
11:52And therefore, the neck is what we call a protected area.
11:56It does happen.
11:57But if you've only got a neck injury in isolation, it doesn't quite make sense about this being a fall
12:03downstairs.
12:06Once I found the damage to the hyoid bone, and taking that with the marker across the neck, discoloration of
12:13the face, the small pinpoint hemorrhages in and around the eyes.
12:17This then confirmed my suspicion that Mary's neck had been compressed.
12:22And at that stage, I was quite firm in that this was a case of ligature strangulation, and Mary had
12:31been murdered.
12:32It was a shocking discovery that dramatically changed the course of their investigation.
12:40Mary Cassidy came into the office to me, and she says, this girl was murdered.
12:44It's not a tragic fall down the stairs.
12:47And I was a little bit taken, because I wasn't expecting that.
12:51And she said, she's been asphyxiated by strangulation, by way of ligature.
12:56I said to her, how sure are you about this?
12:59Like, and it's probably a bit cheeky of me asking, like, you know, because I wasn't expecting that.
13:02She says, I'm 110% sure.
13:05Mary Cassidy was quite solid in her findings.
13:09I got on to my superintendent, and my very words to her, I said, you may sharpen your pencil.
13:15We have a murder investigation.
13:19Strangulation is actually a very personal method of murder.
13:22And that's because it often involves looking someone directly in the face as you kill them.
13:28And on top of that, it actually takes quite a long time for someone to pass away from asphyxiation.
13:33Most commonly, then, you see asphyxiation murders in relation to either anger and rage-based murders,
13:41or sexually motivated murders.
13:44The Gough family had to be told that it was a murder.
13:47We could see that they were a very close family,
13:50and that they were very, very close to Colin Whelan and his family.
13:55The next day, Mary's brother came down to the station with his partner,
13:59and we told him, look it, we're treating this as a murder.
14:03Mary was murdered, she was strangled, and it's now a murder investigation.
14:08Colin was the only person in the house at the time with Mary,
14:11so it leaves a finger of suspicion on Colin.
14:14They could not believe what we were saying.
14:16We asked them not to engage with Colin Whelan and not to do anything foolish.
14:22Until Colin was made a suspect in Mary's death,
14:25her family had seen nothing to suggest that he was capable of committing such a horrific act.
14:32From an outsider's perspective, looking at Colin and Mary's relationship,
14:37there might not be any immediate red flags or concerns about his behaviour,
14:42or the state of their relationship, or his likelihood to go on to harm her, to kill her.
14:48But that doesn't mean that there's not stuff going on behind the scenes.
14:52There might still have been escalations of behaviour that the general public are just not aware of.
14:59Following the pathologist's findings,
15:02investigators asked Colin about his movements on the day of Mary's death.
15:07He told them that it was a normal working day,
15:10except that he went to a luxury department store around midday.
15:15Colin, during lunch hour at work, had purchased a bronze ornament for his wife, Mary.
15:23And the lady who served him remembered him,
15:26because of him saying he loved his wife and he wanted to surprise her and all that, you know.
15:30And she thought that was very nice.
15:32Colin was also asked about his whereabouts after work.
15:36He said, look, I came home from work.
15:38He changed and went out again to go to the gym.
15:41He was there for an hour, returned home again.
15:44Himself and Mary were there, they had some dinner.
15:47Officers confirmed Colin's claims by checking his home security alarm logs.
15:52And with a clean criminal record,
15:54there was nothing to suggest any suspicious behaviour by Colin in the lead-up to Mary's death.
16:02Someone escalating from having no criminal behaviour in their past,
16:06suddenly all the way up to murder, can happen.
16:09It really depends on the motive behind the murder.
16:12Often, though, what you see in cases of domestic homicide like this appears to be,
16:16is there is normally a pattern of escalation of behaviours before the moment of murder.
16:22But that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone's been apprehended
16:25or any criminal charges have been brought for those prior behaviours.
16:30And a lot of the time, things that we see as red flags or, you know, issues or concerns from
16:36someone,
16:37are a lot easier to see in retrospect than they are in the moment.
16:42Within days of Mary's death, her funeral service took place.
16:48All the guards that were involved in the investigation attended to show their support for the family,
16:54and also to see the reaction of Colin Whelan and his family.
16:59Colin was acting as a cold individual.
17:01He was a big man. He was six foot five. He was a well-built man.
17:05But he was cold. He had no emotion in his face. He had no tears in his eyes.
17:09He didn't put his hands up to his face. He didn't show any emotion that he was going to bury
17:15his wife. None whatsoever.
17:18Colin appearing very emotionally withdrawn at the funeral isn't inherently a red flag.
17:24Everyone responds to trauma and loss and grief in very different ways.
17:28Some people withdraw into themselves.
17:31And so, whilst it might not look how everyone would expect someone to present at a funeral,
17:38it doesn't necessarily indicate anything sinister in of itself.
17:45The investigation into Colin Whelan was well underway, but the police at this point were yet to establish a motive.
17:52Every murder has a motive.
17:55And you have to find that motive, because if you find the motive, it'll lead you to the killer.
18:00Was Colin having an affair? Was he trying to get rid of his wife?
18:05Was there financial difficulties?
18:08That's what we needed to determine.
18:11Investigators decided to search for clues on Colin's computers.
18:16It was decided that it would be prudent to seize his computers and view them to see if there was
18:24anything on it of evidential value.
18:27His own personal computer we took from his house, there was nothing on it that appeared to have even wiped.
18:32And there was nothing of evidential value accruing from that computer.
18:36But when investigators turned to Colin's work computers, they found he didn't realise that his searches had been saved to
18:45an external server.
18:47They had what they called a double proxy server.
18:49I never heard of that before. I didn't even know what it was.
18:52And they said, we have a server that captures absolutely everything that any of our employees do on a daily
18:58basis.
18:59So I said, you're telling me anything that he looked up or done will be saved? Yes.
19:04So I said, happy days.
19:07But getting to Colin's specific computer activity meant finding a way to navigate through months of data covering 60 other
19:15employees.
19:17They decided that they would devise a program and key it into the logs and look for keywords like murder
19:24or strangulation or that type of thing.
19:27And that's exactly what they did.
19:29What the police found was chilling.
19:31Colin Whelan had been searching terms like asphyxiation, how to block a windpipe and how long does it take to
19:40die from choking.
19:42What was sickening to me is that he was looking up asphyxiation and strangulation before he got married.
19:50So he had this intention, obviously, before he got married and played out the six months of marriage like the
19:56perfect husband and then killed her.
20:01It brought it home to me. There was no doubt in my mind at that stage that Colin Whelan had
20:05strangled his wife and he was the murderer and that he had researched how to do it and to make
20:11it look like a fall down the stairs.
20:13It was shocking, really.
20:17In premeditated murders, it is fairly common for someone to do research before committing the act, especially if they are
20:25planning to try and get away with it.
20:26Because they're often looking at different potential murder methods, different ways to maybe stage a scene or to make it
20:33look like an accident.
20:34And all of that's very intentional for them trying to be organized, trying to get away with it.
20:41Police also discovered that Colin took an unhealthy interest in serial killers.
20:48What was hugely relevant was his research into Henry Lewis Wallace.
20:54Because the nine women he killed and eventually was caught for, he had strangled them but never left a ligature
21:01mark.
21:02Copycat murders are relatively rare but they are well documented in criminology.
21:07They are understood as a phenomenon.
21:09What you often see in copycat killers is that they are replicating the behavior of that offender, perhaps because they
21:16sort of share an ideology with them.
21:18Or perhaps actually because they have a sense of grandiosity and they think they can do the same act but
21:24better.
21:25So you have to wonder in the case of Colin whether he looked at this case, he saw the method
21:32by which these murders had occurred and he tried to replicate them thinking that he could do it better.
21:38Our access to his computer spelt out to us this cold-blooded and methodical individual who used the internet to
21:49follow his plan.
21:51But we still had not established at that stage what the motive was for killing his wife.
22:03After investigators established that Mary Gough died from ligature strangulation, her husband Colin, who had claimed she fell down the
22:12stairs, became the prime suspect as detectives continued to search for a motive.
22:19Colin had said it was only him and her in the house at the time and Colin had given up
22:26his keys to the house so we searched his house.
22:30As the forensic team scoured Colin and Mary's marital home for clues, they came across vital evidence in the couple's
22:38bedroom.
22:40The blood staining on the wall between the ensuite and the main door was extremely evident.
22:48When you're being strangled, blood vessels break in your nose and they emit blood in a mist format.
22:54And they found that pattern on the wallpaper so they knew something had happened in the bedroom and it was
23:01violent.
23:02Their discovery contradicted Colin's claim that Mary had died after falling down the stairs on her own.
23:10This is a case of primary scene staging.
23:13So this is where someone has staged the crime scene specifically with the intention of misleading the police investigation.
23:20Because Colin has tried to set this up to look like an accident.
23:23But now the evidence is showing that actually there was some sort of confrontation at the top of the stairs.
23:28The blood spatter analysis is not aligning with Colin's tale of events.
23:35Investigators also discovered a vital clue in the duvet Mary was wrapped in when emergency services first arrived on the
23:42scene following Colin's call.
23:46Wrapped up in the duvet was a yellow towel and the yellow towel had blood staining on it, which turned
23:52out to be Mary's blood.
23:54And it was a light bulb moment because it sparked a thought with me about Henry Lewis Wallace.
24:00And at every scene of his murders, there was a towel involved.
24:05And the fact that he had looked up and researched him, I believe this towel was involved in some way
24:11in the murder of Mary Gough.
24:14Mary Cassidy, the state pathologist who had first found evidence of ligature strangulation, also revisited the scene to look for
24:22more clues.
24:25Where's the ligature? What had been tied round Mary's neck?
24:30When I went upstairs, we had a look around and in the bedroom, there was nothing very much lying about.
24:36But there was a dressing gown hanging behind the door.
24:40The belt was in place, it was through the loops, but it looked as if it had been stretched or
24:45something and there was some staining on it.
24:47And I immediately brought it to their attention and I said, well, that could have been used to strangle her.
24:54The belt was sent to the forensic science laboratory for testing.
24:59They found Mary's blood on the belt.
25:05Given that the ligature was found in the bedroom and Mary was found at the bottom of the stairs,
25:11I wondered whether or not she had been strangled upstairs and then manhandled downstairs.
25:20She'd been literally dragged down to the bottom of the stairs and then left in a heap.
25:24It was further evidence that Mary had been murdered, most likely by her husband, Colin Whelan.
25:33Friends and family were in shock that Colin was in the frame for Mary's murder.
25:39But Mary's mum, Marie, said that on reflection, there had been a change in her behaviour in the lead up
25:44to this.
25:45And looking back as well, Mary's family said that on her wedding day, she just didn't look happy.
25:51Her mother said to me that she just felt there was something not right, there was something amiss at the
25:56wedding.
25:57She just couldn't put her finger on it, but Mary wasn't happy and things weren't right.
26:02When the couple came back from their honeymoon, her mum noticed that Mary was just different.
26:08She stopped getting her nails done and wearing certain clothes because she said that Colin didn't like it.
26:13Her mother says she didn't wear her perfume that she loved.
26:16And she said, oh, Colin doesn't like that perfume and I don't wear it anymore.
26:19Mary also stopped even inviting her mum round.
26:22And before this, Marie had practically lived in the house.
26:25She had her own bedroom there, yet something changed.
26:29And the week before she died, Mary's mum said that she was calling her every night.
26:33It's as if she wanted to tell her something.
26:36All of this strikes as someone who's potentially in a coercive, controlling relationship.
26:43Because now they're married, now he has an element of not only legal, but sort of moral control over her.
26:52Manipulators and controlling individuals in relationships do this on purpose.
26:56They do this to isolate their victim and that way they have more control, more say over their life.
27:04And so for someone who is seeking that level of ownership over another human being,
27:11these are very methodical steps that occur with that exact intention.
27:17Investigators still wanted to establish a motive,
27:19so they turned their attention back to Colin's digital footprint.
27:25Further searches of Colin's computer revealed that he had actually set up a website
27:31and was managing this website called extramaritalaffairs.com
27:35and he was portraying himself as single and actively looking for a relationship.
27:41Police then found through this search that Colin had met a woman in Wales
27:45and they were having an online affair.
27:48Through communication, through emails,
27:50they had sent a total of something like 123 greeting cards between each other.
27:56She had nicknamed him Fuzzy Bear and he nicknamed her the Little Welsh Rabbit.
28:03She was wanting to come over and meet him because she had fallen in love with him
28:06and was in love with him as a result of this cyber affair.
28:11Colin going to the extent to set up a whole website just to enable an extramarital online affair
28:17really goes to show the level of secrecy that he's hiding.
28:22You know, the ability that he clearly has to be able to manipulate those in his life
28:27because he's presenting as this loving, doting husband externally.
28:32But the reality of his behaviour is so far removed from that.
28:36And I think this is him actually just testing the limits of what he can get away with.
28:42With the assistance of local police, detectives decided to visit his online girlfriend in Wales.
28:50The Welsh policeman said, I have Irish police here, they want to speak to you
28:54and they want to talk to you about a guy called Colin Whelan.
28:56Oh Colin, yeah, I haven't heard about him in a couple of days.
28:59I wonder, is he alright?
29:01We said, he's fine, his wife died.
29:03Oh, I know that his wife died. He told me she was killed in a car accident in 1997.
29:08And I says, no.
29:10His wife died a week ago
29:13and Colin is the suspect for murdering her.
29:18And with that she just collapsed on the ground like, you know.
29:23Continuing their search for digital evidence,
29:26detectives found another potential motive for Colin to have killed Mary.
29:32An insurance policy document was found
29:35and it showed that initially he had taken out
29:39Policien himself and Mary on the 15th of March, 2000,
29:42for the value of £200,000.
29:45But two months after that, he upped the policy to £400,000,
29:51which was in excess of anything that was reasonable.
29:56The insurance policies were taken out at a time
29:58after they had been engaged and before they got married.
30:02And when you look at his internet history,
30:05going back before they married,
30:07where he was looking up asphyxiation and strangulation,
30:11he obviously had it in his mind at that stage.
30:13He was going to kill her and he was going to cash in.
30:17Also, the internet history showed he was looking at expensive cars,
30:22holidays abroad.
30:22He was looking at the high life if we got this money.
30:26So there is no doubt in our mind,
30:28he wanted to kill his wife for that money.
30:33It was definitely the big jigsaw piece that fitted in.
30:36And to say, well, look, this is the motive.
30:39It was financial greed.
30:41We hadn't banked the rights.
30:43We were quite happy.
30:44We had a very, very strong case.
30:46On April 10th, 2001, police drove to Colin's house.
30:52In the presence of his father,
30:54I arrested him on the suspicion of the murder of his wife, Mary.
30:59Colin Whelan was taken to Balbriggan police station,
31:02where the next day he was questioned about the murder of his wife.
31:07Colin didn't say anything.
31:08He kept his mouth shut.
31:10Now, we asked him, well, can you explain
31:12how she ended up being strangled to death?
31:14And he said, I can't.
31:17We asked him, were you ashamed that you have killed your wife?
31:20Like, have you anything to say?
31:21And he broke down and he cried, but he said no comedy.
31:24He was psychopathic.
31:25That's the way I would look at it.
31:27He believed he was smarter and better than us,
31:30but we were putting questions to him that were hard hitting.
31:33If he sat there and said nothing, we couldn't care less.
31:36We had the ace card at that stage.
31:38Despite Colin invoking his right not to comment,
31:41on April 11th, 2001, police officially charged Colin Whelan
31:46with the murder of his wife.
31:49But he would have to wait over two years to appear in court.
31:54A trial date was set for October the 13th, 2003.
31:58In Ireland, it's common to grant bail when there can be long delays,
32:02sometimes up to two years for murder trials,
32:04provided the accused isn't a flight risk and won't interfere with the prosecution.
32:09Colin Whelan had strict bail conditions.
32:12He had to sign in every day at Balbrigan Garda Station.
32:15He had to live with his family and his family had to pay a significant bail bond.
32:20For two years, Colin Whelan abided by his strict bail conditions.
32:25But seven months before he was due to stand trial, everything changed.
32:31In March 2003, his family came to the station to report Colin missing.
32:37So we had to establish, where is he?
32:41The family feared the worst.
32:43And his car was missing.
32:45And we had to establish where his car was and we had to look for him.
32:50Colin's disappearance sparked a nationwide manhunt.
32:53And on March 12th, 2003, police had a breakthrough on the east coast of Ireland.
33:02The police in Hoth had been patrolling Hoth Head,
33:05which is a known area for people who commit suicide.
33:09And they observed a car there with keys in it.
33:12And they thought it very suspicious.
33:15And they contacted us and I went up immediately to Hoth Head.
33:20I looked at the car and the window was down on the passenger side.
33:24You could clearly see an empty bottle of gin.
33:27With no idea where Colin was, police turned to his cell phone activity to look for clues.
33:35His last phone call we could establish was to the Samaritans,
33:40which would be consistent with someone maybe in a mental state of disorder,
33:46that they would go and throw themselves over the cliffs.
33:49With evidence that Colin might have ended his life at the well-known suicide spot,
33:54detectives triggered a search for his body.
33:57We had a land and sea search carried out by the Irish Coast Guard
34:01to see if his remains were on the cliffs or in the sea.
34:07The researches were negative.
34:11Detectives soon suspected that Colin had staged the scene
34:15to suggest that he was upset, drunk and had taken his own life.
34:20I said to myself, this is typical Colin Whelan, controlling.
34:24He's no more throwing himself off the cliff than the man on the moon.
34:28And wherever he is, I don't know what I'm going to find him.
34:32I think that this scene staging really goes to actually show Colin's narcissistic tendencies.
34:39Because this is someone who thinks that he is so intelligent, he can outsmart the law.
34:45He can think of every preconceived idea and question and answer them by setting up this scene.
34:52But actually, what he's not accounted for is that the perfect nature of the scene actually raises questions in itself.
35:02With Colin Whelan now a fugitive on the run, Irish detectives launched an international manhunt.
35:09When someone like this has vanished, you have to engage Interpol and Europol to circulate the details of Colin Whelan
35:18and what he's wanted for.
35:20And you have to step back and let that take its course.
35:24It may take a short time, it may take a very long time.
35:27But you can do no more than that.
35:31One year on, Colin Whelan continued to evade justice.
35:35But in July 2004, around 16 months after he disappeared, investigators received a tip-off.
35:43This was an unusual turn of events.
35:46Colin had been spotted over 1,000 miles away in the glamorous vacation town of Portal Naus on the Spanish
35:54island of Mallorca.
35:57He was working in a bar.
35:59The bar that he was working in was for customers who had bought yachts of a million pound plus.
36:07So there wasn't going to be too many people from Balbriggan down, wandering around there, parking their yachts.
36:13So he felt relatively safe working there.
36:17But Colin's identity was not as well protected as he thought it was.
36:23A lady, a holiday maker, just happened to walk into the bar and she engaged with Colin Whelan while she
36:31was in the pub.
36:32And he told her his name was Cian Sweeney.
36:35And he gave her his name and wrote it down, signed it on the back of a business card for
36:41the pub and said, you'll get me here.
36:44When she returned to Ireland, the Gough family put in the papers a story about Colin Whelan that he's missing
36:52for so long had anybody seen him, and a picture of him.
36:55And she saw it and she says, Jesus, that's Cian Sweeney, that's the guy I was talking to, that's him.
37:01And she contacted the station, I was put in contact with her.
37:05She says, that's the card he gave me and he signed it.
37:07I took a statement offer.
37:09I went back and compared it with Colin Whelan's signature on the statement he made and the writing to me
37:16and anyone that looked was the same.
37:18So I said, this is our man and we needed to get him.
37:2716 months after Colin Whelan went on the run from Irish police, wanted for the murder of his wife, Mary
37:35Gough,
37:35after first claiming that she had a fatal fall down the stairs, he had finally been located.
37:42And Spanish police were poised to arrest him on behalf of the Irish authorities.
37:48On July the 10th in 2004, at 10.30pm, the Spanish civil guard raided the bar where Colin was working.
37:56He was arrested on the warrant and he said, you have the wrong guy, my name is Cian Sweeney, you
38:01have the wrong guy.
38:02And they took him into custody and took his fingerprints.
38:05And they said, no, you're Colin Whelan, your fingerprints match.
38:09And he just put his hands up and he says, right, I'm Colin Whelan.
38:13News of Colin's high profile arrest spread quickly to Mary's family back home in Ireland.
38:20When Mary's family were told, they were shocked but so relieved.
38:25They broke down in tears on the phone.
38:27Colin Whelan was finally being brought back from Spain to face justice for what he did to Mary.
38:35Detective Pat Mary travelled to Spain to bring Colin Whelan back to Ireland.
38:41I flew out to Madrid to bring him back.
38:44I went down to the cell area.
38:47About halfway down I looked into the right and there was Colin standing there on his own.
38:51And he had grown a beard in this stage.
38:54Now I looked at him and he looked at me.
38:56Our glances together spelled it out.
38:59He knew he was caught and I knew I caught him.
39:02He was handcuffed and put on the plane.
39:03And I was chatting to him and he says, you know, you're very lucky.
39:07And I says, why?
39:09He says, another week I was gone to Singapore and you would never get me.
39:13Whelan saying to the detective, you know, one more week and I'd have been in Singapore.
39:18I think it kind of shows that he's seeing this as a bit of a game.
39:22It's almost like he's trying to flex, you know, that this was a master plan and he would have gotten
39:27away with it if it wasn't for you and those meddling kids.
39:29You know, it's a bit gamified and it's clearly someone not taking the severity of their actions seriously and certainly
39:39not showing any remorse for the death of Mary.
39:43On April 11th, 2005, four years after Mary Goff's murder, Colin stood trial at Dublin Central Criminal Court in one
39:52of the most publicized trials in Irish criminal history.
39:56At the beginning of that trial and before any jury were called, he was arraigned by the court clerk who
40:04read out the charge.
40:05He was asked, did you Colin Whelan on the first of March kill Mary Goff?
40:10And he looked around at me and he just looked at me for a second or two.
40:14And he looked back up at the judge and he said, guilty.
40:19Colin Whelan's admission of guilt stunned the packed courtroom.
40:24The Goff family were very happy. They were ecstatic.
40:27But I looked around at his family, the Whelan family.
40:33They were gobsmacked.
40:35They could not believe what they heard.
40:37They were convinced that their Colin Whelan was innocent.
40:42There's a few reasons that Colin Whelan might be pleading guilty.
40:46It might be because he wants the shock and the attention that this is going to give saying guilty at
40:52this moment.
40:52It might be because he knows that by entering a guilty plea, you're more likely to get a slightly reduced
40:58sentence because you're saving the court a trial.
41:01But it also might be simply because he knows the evidence is too strong against him and there's no way
41:07out.
41:08Colin pleaded guilty in my mind, and I have no doubt about this, that he didn't want his family to
41:13know the details of what he actually did.
41:15And that would all come out during the course of a trial.
41:19As part of his guilty plea, Colin issued an apology letter to the Goff family.
41:26He explained he was sorry for what he was doing, but it didn't wash with the Goff family.
41:30It was seen more of an insult and a hurtful, paltry apology.
41:35And it was self-serving, I think, at the end of the day.
41:38On April 12th, 2005, Colin Whelan was sentenced for the murder of Mary Goff.
41:46Addressing Colin, the judge described Mary's murder as the most calculated and callous killing he had ever encountered in his
41:55entire time in court.
41:57He then gave Colin Whelan a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.
42:02Colin had tried to fool his own family, the Goff family, the guards, and everyone else that would listen to
42:10him, that everything was an accident.
42:13He intended to cash in his 400,000 and swan off to wherever he wanted to do whatever he wanted.
42:19And that's what he thought.
42:21But unfortunately, his plan came to a sticky end.
42:24Smart and all, and as clever and all as he was, he just wasn't as clever as the investigator.
42:30And I'm proud that it had a successful outcome for the Goff family.
42:41This whole case from start to finish really seems like Colin's attempt to assert control and power and show off
42:49his intelligence.
42:50All of it is him, I think, trying to really manipulate those around him still.
42:55It's all still about how he's perceived by the public.
42:59And that sort of narcissism is a real common trait that you see in people with psychopathy.
43:05Mary Goff's death is unfortunately one of many hundreds that I've dealt with.
43:11I've never forgotten it.
43:12I've never forgotten her.
43:14And she's one of the ones that stays with me.
43:17And there's a few who do.
43:19I think as a woman, you feel for women in those circumstances.
43:23You think she was killed by the person that she loved and who told her that he loved her.
43:30And I think how often women get into a situation like that and assume that they're going to have the
43:36happy ever after.
43:38And then it all goes horribly wrong.
43:41It's just a tragedy.
43:43Over two decades since her death, Mary is still fondly remembered by those that knew her and those involved in
43:51the investigation.
43:53I can tell you from what I picked up about Mary from her friends, from her family.
43:59She was a beautiful, kind, caring person.
44:03She was very diligent, very intelligent.
44:06And what happened was absolutely shocking.
44:09But the victim shouldn't be forgot about, like, you know.
44:11And as an investigator, you get to know the deceased, even though you've never met them.
44:16And I felt Mary was really a beautiful woman, a fine lady that suffered.
44:22And unfortunately, in this world, there's too many women that go through that.
44:26And so that's the end of this world that we had to be proud of.
44:41And we know that.
44:41And I felt like we came back to the bar this time.
44:42And I felt like we could have a chance to see him in the future.
44:44And I felt like it was very good.
44:45And we're like, you know, we would have to let him go through our last days.
44:46And I feel like you were right.
45:10Transcription by CastingWords
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