Transcript: 104. The Lust Murder of Elaine O’Hara | Ireland

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On a mild late-summer day, in August 2012, the vibe in the city centre was electric. The people of Dublin flocked to the Docklands, to welcome 40 vessels that had been sailing around Europe’s ports since the beginning of July, in a regatta called the Tall Ships Races.

In 2012, the festival everyone simply called ‘Tall Ships’, drew more than one million visitors. Dubliners made the most of the opportunity to showcase their city. It was a three-day event with festivities, including live music and fun for the family. Street performers kept the crowds entertained and food vendors made sure everyone was fed.

Locals volunteered to work at the event, welcoming ships crews and supporting logistics as big crowds moved to the waterside to appreciate the beautiful vessels from all over the world.

A volunteer manager grew concerned when one of the most enthusiastic volunteers, a childcare worker by the name of Elaine O’Hara, did not show up. 36-year-old Elaine had some mental health challenges, and her father, Frank, was notified about her absence.

No one could reach Elaine on her cell phone. Frank went to her apartment, but no one answered the door. Expecting the worst, he let himself in and called for her, but she wasn’t there. Elaine’s cell phone was still there – which was unusual, as she always seemed to be on her phone, texting or playing games. Her car was gone, so it looked like she only intended to leave for a short while, perhaps just to get something from a convenience store. But when Elaine was still missing the next morning, Frank knew something wasn’t right.

It would be a year before Frank learnt what happened to his daughter on that August day. The story of Elaine O’Hara caused a sensation, that shook the people of Ireland to the core.

>>Intro Music

Elaine O’Hara was born on the 17th of March 1976 in Dublin, Ireland to parents Frank and Eileen. Elaine had a rocky childhood, as she had many health and mental health issues. She suffered from asthma, diabetes and was also dyslexic. As she reached her teens, Elaine was also diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder.

She attended St Joseph of Cluny school and was bullied at school – adding fuel to the fire of her already fragile state.

In her mid-teens, Elaine resorted to self-harm. Her parents were supportive of her and were aware of her battles, but sadly Elaine’s internal struggles only got worse. At the age of 16, she attempted suicide. Her mom found her, with slashed wrists in the bathroom, and was able to save her. Both Eileen and Frank took their daughter’s problems to heart and made sure that she received the necessary counselling.

With the love and support of her parents, Elaine managed to finish school and further her education in childcare. In 2001 she took a job as a childcare assistant at the elementary school where her mother worked. It was the ideal situation: Elaine moved towards independent adulthood, but her mom was there to keep an eye on her. They had a close and trusting relationship – Eileen meant the world to Elaine.

Sadly, Eileen was diagnosed with cancer and passed away in 2002. This was a significant setback for Elaine. She grieved deeply and spent a lot of time at home with her dad. Over the course of a couple of years, she managed to pick up the pieces. In 2005 she moved out of the family home in Killiney to an apartment in Blackrock. Her dad, Frank, always watched over Elaine and helped her out financially from time to time.

Elaine still battled with her mental health issues, but she always knew the signs, at which point to look for help when she needed it. Despite this, she managed to keep herself going. She had aspirations of becoming a Montessori teacher and took night classes in the town of Dún Laoghaire. From Blackrock, Elaine moved to an affordable housing scheme apartment in Stepaside. She worked as an assistant in childcare at Ballybrack and also had a part-time job at a local newsagency in Blackrock.

In the last week of August 2012, Frank grew concerned when he could not get a hold of his daughter. Typically, he was in daily contact with Elaine, but he had not heard from her in two days. He called her friends and co-workers, but they had not seen or heard from Elaine either. On Friday the 24th of August, he reported her missing.

Because of Elaine’s mental health problems, Frank was concerned that she had had a setback. In the time leading up to her disappearance, she booked herself into, St Elstonbury – a private mental health facility. Elaine received treatment for three weeks, and when she was released, she was much better. When she went home on August 22nd, she was upbeat and excited to resume her everyday life. Frank picked her up from the clinic, and together they went straight to her mother’s grave, a place dear to both of them. It was a ritual, to show Eileen that they were doing okay. They took flowers and talked to her, held onto each other as they longed for her.

But this was not a day for tears. Elaine had volunteered to work at the Tall Ships Races Festival as a guide the following day. It was the highlight of Elaine’s year – she was looking forward to it and relieved that she was out of the hospital so she could go.

But Elaine never showed up for her shift as a volunteer. Organisers at the Tall Ships Races were surprised and contacted Frank to ask if he knew where she was. Frank tried calling her, but she didn’t pick up her phone. Concerned, he let himself into her apartment. Elaine wasn’t there, and she had left her cell phone at home too. It was unusual, but Frank thought perhaps she had the dates mixed up as she had been in the hospital for a while. Maybe she was visiting a friend…

Frank kept calling into the night, hoping Elaine was back home. When there was no answer the next morning, he went back to her apartment, with a friend. It was clear that Elaine had not been home since he had been there the day before. He also noticed her handbag, that is when he knew something was terribly wrong. Elaine would not have intended to go far without her phone or purse. But where could she have gone without money or credit cards?

Frank’s friend went into Elaine’s room and found a latex bondage suit and mask in the laundry basket. She decided NOT to tell Frank about it, as the insinuation that his daughter was into BDSM would have unsettled the man who was already deeply worried. She did not think it was relevant to Elaine’s disappearance and left it at that.

Frank decided to visit his wife’s grave as he thought Elaine could have gone there. When he arrived, he saw her car in the parking lot and was relieved. Convinced that everything was about to be cleared up, he went over to her car, but there was no sign of Elaine. Inside the car, Frank noticed something strange. There was a phone charger for a Nokia, but Elaine owned an iPhone – the phone that he found in her apartment.

This was when Frank notified police. The initial assumption was that something happened to her at the Tall Ships’ Races, or perhaps on her way there. Garda took immediate action and tried to trace Elaine’s movements from when she was last seen. They looked at CCTV footage from the apartment building where she lived and saw that she arrived home at 4:29pm on August 22nd, the same day she was released from the hospital after she had visited her mother’s grave with her dad. The footage showed Elaine then leaving her home again at 5:05pm with a cell phone in her hand. She was wearing a blue hoodie and navy tracksuit pants. This was strange, as she had told her dad she planned on having a night in, as the following day at the Tall Ships was going to be a long one.

Police and searchers went to Shanganagh Park [Shan-ganna], where Elaine’s car was found. The phone in her hand looked like a Nokia, which would explain the charger in her car. It looked like Elaine drove herself to the park, but why? Did she want to visit her mother’s grave once more? Shanganagh Park is a large wooded area where people go for recreation, so perhaps she simply went for a walk and perhaps injured herself. Police showed Elaine’s photo to people visiting the park.

A jogger recognised her and said that he saw her on Wednesday, the 22nd of August. He noted that Elaine asked him if he knew where the footbridge crossing the railway was. He didn’t. He thought that she was rude when she left without saying anything else. She looked upset, distraught even, as she kept an eye on the screen of her phone while she walked off.

Another witness recalled a woman fitting Elaine’s description crying loudly at a graveside, but could not say for sure if the woman was, in fact, Elaine or not.

Not far from the location where she spoke to the jogger, was a beach. Police assumed that Elaine visited her mother’s grave and consumed by grief went to the beach where she ended her life by walking into the ocean. They scoured the beach, but again, there was no trace of Elaine.

Time went on, and there was no new information about Elaine’s whereabouts. Frank was devastated as he suspected his daughter had committed suicide. But without her remains, there was a slight chance she was still alive… Perhaps she had suffered a psychotic break and didn’t know how to make her way home.

Just over a year after Elaine went missing, dog trainer Magali Vergnet [Muh-gully Vern-yay] walked dogs near Killakee [Kill-a-key] foothills of the Dublin Mountains. She had permission from the owner of the property to take her dogs for a walk there. While she was walking along a wooded trail, her dog disappeared and came back with bones. He dropped it and ran back into the woods, returning with another bone. This went on for a couple of days, with Magali’s dog fetching bones of varying shapes and sizes. She assumed the bones were animal remains and moved along.

Then, one day, the same dog brought another bone, this time with clothing on it. Magali felt uneasy and wondered for the first time if the remains could be human. She called the owner of the property, Frank Doyle, and they investigated together. In a clearing, they found scattered bones, a human rib cage and a jawbone. At the scene, they also discovered blue tracksuit pants with a shoe still inside. They immediately contacted law enforcement.

Dental records confirmed that the remains belonged to Elaine O’Hara. Only 65% of her skeleton was recovered, due to the length of time it was exposed to the elements. Police no longer believed it was a suicide, but rather that she had been murdered. It was a massive shock to Elaine’s family and friends, as they had only just begun to come to terms with the idea that she had ended her own life.

Around the same time, about 15 to 20 miles from where Elaine’s remains were found, William Fegan, his brother and a friend stopped for a chat on Sally’s Bridge at Vatry Reservoirs one afternoon. Usually, the water was about twenty feet deep. But due to the hottest summer in twenty years, the waterline had receded. So, on this September day in 2013, the water level was just over one foot deep.

As he was talking to his brother and their friend, William spotted something strange in the water – a sports bag perhaps. The men were curious and fished it out. Inside the bag, they found some clothing, a ball gag, restraints, leg restraints and handcuffs. The men laughed at it, though it was a remnant from a bachelor’s party or something and left it there.

However, William felt it was unusual. He had the nagging sense that it had some significance, so he went back to the bridge the following day, retrieved the bag and took it to police at Roundwood Garda Station. He told officer James O’Donoghue exactly where he had found it, and the Garda followed up. James visited the spot where the bag was discovered several times over the next couple of days. He thought that there could be something more out there to explain this unusual discovery. He dug through the murky water and found a set of keys, as well as an inhaler. Then more items came up, similar to those found by William Fegan and his friends: handcuffs, a leather mask, a chain with a ring on it… Also a Dunnes Stores loyalty card on a keychain, with a name on it: Elaine O’Hara.

When following up, Garda learnt that Elaine O’Hara’s remains were recently found at Killakee. Suddenly, the curious discovery became vital evidence. In this investigation, one of the biggest coincidences is that the evidence and Elaine’s remains were discovered a couple of miles apart, only days apart. Also, the fact that James O’Donoghue trusted his gut instinct and went to investigate further, proved extremely useful.

Investigators went back to the water at Sally’s Bridge, and fine-combed the area. They found sunglasses, a daypack as well as a pair of eyeglasses. The number on the frame of the glasses could be linked to Specsavers in Dún Laoghaire. Records proved that the glasses belonged to Elaine O’Hara.

Among the items found in the water, were two cell phones. It had been in the water for more than a year, so police did not have much hope of retrieving any information from them. Both phones were Nokia phones that looked like the one Elaine was holding when she left her apartment on Wednesday the 22nd of August – a year before.

Miraculously both phones powered on and revealed a multitude of text messages between two people. Each phone had only one contact saved to the phone. The one person as MSTR (well, Master) and the other SLV (Slave).

Master was clearly in control and Slave, the subservient recipient. The tone of Master’s messages was manipulative, and many texts threatened violence. Evidence showed that the two had a long-standing sexual relationship, which revolved around bondage and the use of knives. The connection between the two was very intense in 2008, four years before Elaine’s death.

Over time, messages became very dark. It was clear that ‘Master’ wanted to rape, stab and kill women for sexual gratification. He wanted ‘Slave’ to be a part of it. In June 2011, he sent a message saying:

“I want to stick my knife in flesh while I am sexually aroused… I would like to stab a girl to death sometime.”

Another message read:

“My urge to rape, stab or kill is huge. You have to help me control or satisfy it.”

These are only two of thousands upon thousands of violent messages. Investigators spent hours following the sadomasochistic relationship as it evolved over four years. Every time SLV threatened to get out of the relationship, Master would dangle the promise of fathering a child with her. He tried to entice her to help him find someone to kill.

A friend said that Elaine had confided in her that she was in a relationship with a married man and that he did not treat her very well. The friend encouraged her to end it, but Elaine did not seem to think that this was an option.

By this time, with all evidence collected, it was fair to assume that the person called Slave was Elaine O’Hara.

Police grew concerned that MSTR had not only killed Elaine but that there were more victims out there. They managed to trace down the shop where the Nokia cell phones were purchased. The buyer had supplied a false name and an address. Based on the information, they found a man whose name and address were close matches and took him in for questioning. However, he knew absolutely nothing about Elaine O’Hara or the world of BDSM. He also had an alibi for the day Elaine went missing – he was at work all the time.

Investigators then went back to the mountain of messages and tried to find a clue as to MSTR’s real identity. In one conversation, he mentioned the birth of his daughter. He also said what they had named her. Based on the date and the name, police went to all maternity wards in Dublin and were able to get a shortlist of baby girls born around the time the text was sent.

The conversations also revealed that MSTR had met SLV at her home and that they had sexual encounters in her bedroom. CCTV footage from Elaine’s apartment complex showed multiple visits by a man in his late thirties. They searched her apartment and were able to get a DNA profile from semen in Elaine’s bed.

Another clue hidden among the texts was that MSTR mentioned coming 5th in a flying competition. Was he a pilot? They were able to determine that nobody in the greater Dublin-area holding a pilot’s licence had fathered a baby around that stipulated date. Also, pilots did not have flying competitions, so what could he have meant? Was he a gaming enthusiast? The penny dropped: it must be someone who flew model aeroplanes. Police called all the flying clubs in the area and asked about someone fitting the description: a married man with a baby daughter who came 5th in a competition two years before.

On the 20th of September, only a week after Elaine’s remains were found, the Garda hit pay dirt: a flying club located near Sally’s Bridge, where the bag with BDSM evidence was found, had a member who fits the description. It was a 41-year-old Dublin architect by the name of Graham Dwyer.

This was entirely unexpected. Dwyer was a clean-cut family man, and he certainly did not look like someone harbouring the dark secret of a double life. He had no criminal history, but that didn’t mean he was innocent. When the investigation found evidence that, on the days of text communication between MSTR and SLV, the phone used by MSTR, was in the same vicinity as Dwyer’s home or work, they knew they were onto something.

Graham Dwyer was born in Bandon, Cork County on September 13th 1972, to Sean and Susan Dwyer. He had three siblings and a wholesome upbringing. After high school, in the 1990s, he moved to Dublin where he studied architecture.

His college girlfriend, Emer McShea, fell pregnant and they had a son together. They didn’t get married but lived together for a while. Emer told police that Graham had confided in her about his fantasy to stab a woman during sex and often took a kitchen knife into the bedroom and pretended to stab her when they were intimate. Their relationship ended in 1996.

Police found another ex-girlfriend, called Sarah Murphy, who said Graham was always obsessed with knives when it came to sex. Eventually, it weirded her out too much, and she left him. He did not take the break-up well and started stalking her and making her life a nightmare.

In 1997, Graham Dwyer became involved with fellow architect student Gemma Healy, and they got married five years later. Things looked like it couldn’t get any better for the young, up-and-coming architect. His career at A&D Wejchert [Wedge-churt] & Partners Architects was soaring, and in 2006 he became a director. Dwyer was involved in many major projects in Ireland and abroad.

This position meant they could afford to buy a house in Foxrock, one of the most sought-after suburbs in Dublin. In 2007, Graham and Gemma moved into their new home at Kerrymount Close. Graham and Gemma were very much the ‘it’ couple, they were even in the Irish Times together when they joined their architectural talents together in the restoration of an old cottage in Dublin.

The couple had two children and enjoyed the trimmings of a privileged life. Graham enjoyed his hobbies, flying model aeroplanes and driving luxury vehicles. Gemma loved sailing. They were on the up and up when the Global Financial Crisis struck in 2008. Gemma was laid off work and Graham took a 50% pay cut. They managed to keep their home, but the glory days were over.

After learning about Graham, police staked out the Dwyer family home. They took the opportunity to go through his trash, in the hope of finding anything that could yield a DNA sample. Because Graham was such an unlikely suspect, they needed to know if they were onto the right person, before exploring the investigation any further.

The forensic investigation explored the contents of Elaine’s computer. Police found definitive evidence that she was into BDSM, making the conclusion that she was SLV in the text message communication more plausible. Elaine was active on a website called alt.com under the name ‘helpmelearn36/F. Elaine’s profile mentioned that she wanted to be a better submissive. On the website, she had contact with someone who called themselves ‘architect72’. Architect72 had a Gmail address: fetishboy. The email belonged to Graham Dwyer.

In compiling a timeline of the relationship, investigators saw things between them cooled down for a while but flared up again in 2011. Graham, using a different cell phone, contacted Elaine on her second cell phone – the one that was only used when communicating with Graham. He was the one who wanted to re-establish communication between them. Messages showed that Elaine pointedly said that she wasn’t into blood anymore, but Graham insisted they met up again.

The relationship was re-ignited, and they saw each other sporadically, up to the time of Elaine’s murder. A text in the days leading up to her death is a haunting foreboding of what Graham had in mind. It read:

“If anything happened to you – who knows about me?”

On the day Elaine was discharged from hospital, text messages show that Graham commanded Elaine to go to Shanganagh Park. He told her to leave her iPhone and take the Nokia with her. It was a fine line because their relationship was that of Master and Slave – a consensual situation where Elaine did as she was told by Graham. But with her emotional state, being under the control of someone like him, made her extremely vulnerable.

Elaine knew that Graham intended to stab her, but she did not realise he was planning on killing her. He hadn’t been with her in more than three weeks, and he was ready to make his ultimate fantasy come true. He was teeming with desire.

When Elaine arrived, she texted: “Here, Sir.”

He replied with instructions to meet her at the footbridge.

When the jogger saw her, Elaine was anxious, scared of disappointing her Master. The jogger confirmed that he saw Elaine at 17:40pm, using the ‘Map-my-run’ app. Text messages show the route she followed as she said ‘I’m lost, I’m in a football field now’. In the vast expanse of woodland, it was challenging to find the exact rendezvous point, from where she would be at his mercy.

Graham Dwyer’s plan was to let Elaine walk the distance through the whole park – away from where she had parked her car, then he would take her away, using a different exit route. The jogger passed her again, this time on the footbridge, where she was standing still, texting on her phone. The jogger said to her ‘I see you found the bridge’, but it was clear that Elaine was not in the mood for conversation and she did not reply. Data showed what was said between her and Dwyer:

SLV: Here – now, where’s the park?

MSTR: Cross bridge, head for opposite end of park, near steps to sea.

She texted him when she arrived at the spot, and he instructed her to go down to the shore and wait for him. To get down to the beach, she would have taken stairs, then she had to cross a road and go down another stairway. Police were not able to find any witnesses who saw her on the beach, so concluded that Graham must have picked her up in his car when she reached the road at the bottom of the first set of steps.

Together they drove into the woods at Killakee, where he finally satisfied his lifelong fantasy of raping and stabbing a woman to death. Forensic psychologist, John O’ Keeffe talked to journalist Nicola Tallant from Sunday World and described what must have gone through Graham Dwyer’s mind at this stage. O’Keeffe reckons that, by the time a person has given in to their compulsion to kill, nothing will stop them. Graham was probably excited as he waited for Elaine, luring her deeper and deeper into the park.

It was easy for him to remain calm after the killing. The event had been brewing in his fantasies for many years. Also, he was used to keeping his BDSM life a secret. It was a part of him that he could close the door to and walk away – as he had done many times before after sexual encounters. He hid it from his wife, and his middle-class suburban persona was the perfect disguise for the monster that was lurking beneath.

Once he was done, he simply left her remains out in the open. Then he drove to another county and dumped the evidence in the reservoir. Then he went home to his wife and children and resumed his everyday life.

O’Keeffe is convinced that Graham would have visited the spot where he had left Elaine in the year before she was discovered, to view his work. Like an artist, appreciating his craft.

Professor David Wilson pointed out that Dwyer’s was a case of piquerism – the sexual compulsion to penetrate the skin of another person with a sharp object. The sight and smell of blood would stimulate him sexually. Because Elaine said that she ‘wasn’t into blood anymore’ – quote, unquote – it is fair to assume he had stabbed her before. Because she had a history of self-harming, she could have explained her injuries as being self-inflicted.

But for Graham, the fantasy had to evolve. If he had a knife in the bedroom, soon that would become mundane, normal. The knife had to move into the act of sex. Once that became routine, it had to be used for penetration deep enough to inflict serious harm, ideally death.

Both Graham’s and Elaine’s laptops contained footage of them engaging in violent sex. On his computer were short stories, written by him, about raping women at knifepoint.

When police arrested Dwyer, he said that he didn’t know Elaine O’Hara. He also denied that he ever owned the Nokia phone from which MSTR had sent his messages to SLV. But police had tonnes of evidence against him and presented the pieces to him: one after the other.

Graham Dwyer was identified as the man seen entering Elaine’s home on CCTV footage. His DNA profile matched the semen found in her bed. There were also puncture marks on the mattress made by a knife. When police showed him the sex videos with him and Elaine, he had to confess that he knew her. Graham said that he met her on a BDSM website and a relationship developed, but he didn’t kill her. Then, when she disappeared, he thought that she had ended her own life. Despite all the evidence against him, he insisted that he was innocent and only tried to help Elaine. Police did not buy it.

Graham Dwyer was charged with murder. He requested bail, but it was denied as police were convinced he had an insatiable appetite and he would not hesitate to harm someone again. During his time in remand, Graham wrote many letters to his wife Gemma, promising her that he was innocent and that his arrest was a mistake. He admitted that he tried to help Elaine, whom he referred to as ‘that awful woman’. Graham begged Gemma to forgive him for not telling her about Elaine. He was adamant that he DID NOT kill her.

However, it was too late. Gemma was appalled when she learnt of her husband’s secret life. The fact that he had been lying to her and sleeping with other women, engaging in BDSM, was something she could not forgive. She left him and broke off all contact.

Graham’s trial started on the 22nd of January 2015 and lasted for 10 weeks. The case attracted a lot of media attention, with tabloids loving the story of the wealthy architect and his double life.

At the trial, one shocking revelation followed the other. Hours of sex videos showed that Dwyer was obsessed with knives and violence. In court, clips were shown of Dwyer stabbing Elaine in the stomach while having sex. Most of the videos were with Elaine, but she wasn’t the only one. At the same time, he was involved with four other women too. In all the videos he either threatened to stab or actually stabbed his sexual partners. Afterwards, he

liked to film a close up on the wounds, presumably so he can watch it over and over again, reliving his sexual gratification.

Some of the videos were of himself in a bondage mask, stabbing himself. However, Dwyer did not actually inflict harm onto himself, that part was only an illusion.

In court, the messages between Graham and Elaine were shown to the jury. Text messages from Elaine alluded to Dwyer’s threats to stab and kill her. The years and years of emotional turmoil between MSTR and SLV became public knowledge – the whole country followed the story with a sense of disgust and disbelief.

Dwyer’s defence claimed that, as pathologists were unable to determine Elaine’s cause of death, it was not plausible to charge Graham with killing her. They presented evidence of Elaine considering suicide and outlined her history of mental illness. They contended that there were no stab injuries to the skeletal remains, which made the knifing footage irrelevant in a murder case. The defence claimed that the texts from Dwyer were only fantasy, NOT threats. It was part of the game – and Elaine was a willing participant.

For the Prosecution, Séan Guerin SC argued that all the evidence pointed to Dwyer planning the murder in such a way that he had hoped to get away with it. Texts between the two showed that Dwyer was violent, but Elaine asked not to be stabbed or beaten. She only wanted love, companionship and perhaps even a child. Dwyer was aware of her mental state and that she had visited a psychologist and had received treatment at St Elstonbury. The timing of setting his plan into motion was no coincidence. He lured her to the cemetery, then they went into the woods together. Dwyer’s plan was to make it appear as if though Elaine had ended her own life.

Psychology experts believed that Elaine would not be his last victim and that Dwyer would kill again. He had met an American woman from Maine called Darcy Day online, and they engaged in sexual fantasy conversations. Like Elaine, Darcy felt suicidal at times and had inflicted self-harm as a teenager.

On his computer, a short story called ‘Killing Darcy’ was a violent narrative of a lustful killer who stabbed Darcy to death then sodomised her corpse. Darcy became a born-again Christian and renounced her BDSM past, but when she was asked to testify in the Dwyer case, she agreed.

The jury deliberated for seven hours and returned a unanimous verdict. Graham Dwyer was found guilty on 27 March 2015 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The trial judge said he agreed 110% with the jury’s verdict.

Elaine’s family and friends sat through torturous hours of video evidence. The press loved the story because it seemed so unlikely that a clean-cut Dwyer and a childcare worker like Elaine could have been into BDSM. Elaine’s family pleaded with the public to remember Elaine for all her other qualities and not for her sexual preferences. There was so much more to her, and she would have been mortified at having her most intimate secrets made public. Sadly, she never had the chance to have her own family and children, something she always wanted.

The murder of Elaine O’Hara was almost a perfect crime. Had there not been a drought, William Fegan would probably never have found the evidence at Sandy’s Bridge. If Garda James O’Donoghue didn’t follow up and visited the reservoir, they would never have seen the evidence linking Elaine to her killer, Graham Dwyer. They were from different worlds – Graham was a seemingly wealthy and well-known architect, Elaine, a childcare worker who struggled to get by. She offered herself up, to be loved. Instead, she was slaughtered, sacrificed to satisfy disturbed man’s dark fantasy.

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