Date | 6 March 1997 |
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Location | No.1 Orchard View, Grangegorman, Dublin, Ireland |
Also known as | Grangegorman murders |
Deaths | Sylvia Sheils and Mary Callinan |
Suspects | Dean Lyons, Mark Nash |
Charges | Mark Nash |
Convictions | Mark Nash |
The Grangegorman killings were the homicide on 6 March 1997 of Sylvia Sheils and Mary Callinan, patients at St. Brendan's Psychiatric Hospital in Grangegorman, Dublin, Ireland.[1] After giving a false confession, Dean Lyons was charged with the murders and placed on remand.[2] In his statement to the Garda Síochána (police), Lyons gave details that would only be known to the murderer or to the investigators.[3][4] After Lyons was charged, Mark Nash confessed to the killings, but later retracted his confession.[5] In April 2015, Nash's trial for the murder of Sheils and Callinan began[6] after an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the trial from going forward.[7]
Lyons was described by one of the gardaí (policemen) involved in the case as a "Walter Mitty" character,[8] and Charles Smith, psychiatrist and director of the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, felt that he might be prone to exaggeration and attention seeking.[9] He spent nine months in jail for a crime that he did not commit, and was released after the charge of murder against him was dropped on 29 April 1998.[10][11] A commission of investigation was set up to investigate the conduct of the Garda in the case. Dean Lyons died from a heroin overdose in 2000.[12]
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