Chapter 4: In Trouble Again

Tony Muggivan

noticed that Brendan was beginning to go to bed earlier and earlier in the evening. Many times, there would be a good film on TV or the other children would have picked up a good video to watch. I would ask Brendan to stay up with the family and to watch either the film or the video. He would prefer to go to bed.

He told me that when he was at Trinity House all they ever did was watch movies all the time. I noticed that he seemed to have seen every movie that ever came on the TV.

I also noticed that Brendan was getting very quiet, but I knew there was nothing that I could do.

At the time, I did not realise that a friend of mine, Denis Woods, was also very worried about Brendan. Denis visited us on one occasion during the spring of 1989, when our children and Brendan were playing football in the yard. The ball was kicked in Denis’s direction and he kicked it back towards Brendan O’Donnell. Brendan was not expecting the ball and it hit him on the chest. Denis later told JJ that he saw a look of rage in Brendan O’Donnell’s eyes and felt, at that moment, that Brendan was capable of killing.

My middle son, Kevin, recalled an evening, shortly after dusk, when he and Brendan had been on their way to a neighbour’s house on an errand. Brendan had suddenly, in a frightened voice, pointed toward a bush and asked Kevin if he could see the man standing under it. Brendan was so sure that there was a dangerous man standing under the bush that he caused Kevin to imagine he could see him too. Both boys began to move rapidly and quietly away from what they both now believed was a dangerous man following them. Eventually, they met the neighbour they had been on their way to visit and he escorted them home.

One Saturday, I was going to visit Mary in the hospital. Brendan came to me and asked if he could visit his mother’s grave. He wanted to cycle the four miles to Clonrush where the grave was. I felt very unhappy with the idea and reluctantly said yes. But I warned him to be back early, as it would be dark when I got home.

When I got home, it was very late and there was no sign of Brendan. I waited up for him, but he didn’t come home. Next morning, I heard that a car belonging to a man named Maxie Bogenberger, had been stolen and crashed near Whitegate.

I knew immediately who was responsible.

Brendan arrived home about 11.30 the following morning. I asked him where he had been. He said that he had stayed in a hay shed overnight. When I asked him why he had not come home, he said he didn’t know. I asked him if he had stolen Maxie’s car and crashed it. He said that he had not.

He had a pair of industrial leather gloves, which I took from him. I told him that I was going to give them to the guards, and that they would be able to find stains of old paint from the car and connect him to the theft. I went to another room and put the gloves away.

When I came back, I told him that it would go better for him in court if he admitted to the guards that he had taken the car. After a long time, he admitted to having stolen it. He said that he had been driving too fast, and had crashed on a bend.

When I asked why he had taken the car, he said that he wanted to bring his sister, Ann Marie, to England. He told me that she was very unhappy at home. I phoned Superintendent McCarthy at his home and told him the story. He had given me his number in case I ever needed his help. He was the only official I came to know ever to do this.

Superintendent McCarthy was very nice and calm and spoke at length to Brendan on the phone. He said he would call to my home on the following Monday and talk about it.

When he came, we had a long talk. He said the car was old and perhaps I could pay for it as Brendan might have learned his lesson. He was very reluctant to have him return to Trinity House as he felt they were giving him no psychological care. He came back a short time later and said that Maxie wanted three thousand pounds for the car.

It was completely out of the question for me to come up with that much money. I still owed Michael O’Sullivan, my brother-in-law, some money I had borrowed for the court case in April, and I was getting more concerned about Brendan.

I had a Persian cat, a very gentle animal. I think the cat thought he was a dog. He always came looking at the cattle with me, night or day. He used to sleep in an outside shed at the time and I could never look at a cow at night without his hearing me and coming with me.

The kitchen window had a small window at the top. The cat would jump up on the window and hold on to the top of the pane with his front paws and start to meow when he wanted to get in. If I said come, he would come. If I said no, he would stay. The back door is still, to this day, scratched from his nails. From the time he came to live with us, Brendan was amused by the cat, and talked quite a bit about him.

One day, the cat disappeared. I always believed that Brendan had done away with it. Kevin, my son, found a small axe in the forest about seventy yards from the house. The axe was mine. I asked Brendan about the cat and if he had seen it. He said that he had not, but he made no attempt to find it.

During all this time, I was in constant touch with my brother in New Orleans. He was very concerned at what I told him about the cat.

Later, it emerged that in the period after Margaret O’Donnell’s death, there had been reports of Brendan’s having been cruel towards younger children in school and towards animals. It was said that he had persuaded younger children in the school to walk into nettles to search for a lost ball. The children had got stung and had cried, and Brendan had laughed at them.

One local said that she had been aware of Brendan hanging two kittens on the clothesline in the yard. A local seven-year-old had been disturbed at the sight and had run to her mother screaming. Again, Brendan had laughed.

According to medical reports presented at the trial, Margaret O’Donnell had told Dr Ledwith in July 1979 that Brendan was very afraid of animals.

The day came when Brendan and I had to go to court in Nenagh. This was the Michaelmas Session of the Circuit Court, held at the very beginning of September 1989, in Nenagh. Nenagh is a town in County Tipperary, about twenty-five miles away by road from my house but much shorter across the lake. In fact, at night, we can see the lights of the town from near where I live.

I got up early to do the farm work before leaving for Nenagh. I called Brendan to get ready. It was a beautiful morning.

I had lent him a new Aran pullover of mine, so that he would look well. Just before we left, he said he wanted to go to the toilet. I waited a long time for him to come out. Finally, I called him, but there was no answer.

I called a couple of times and then started to worry that he had cut his throat with a blade. I broke in the door but he was gone with my new pullover.

I began cursing him to myself, wondering how I was going to explain in court why I couldn’t produce him. I drove to Nenagh and met with my solicitor, with Superintendent McCarthy, and with another officer.

They were disappointed. I was sent to a garda station across from the court to phone home to see if he had returned. It was decided that if he had returned, a Garda Lowry would drive over to Mountshannon for him.

However, he had not returned. As anticipated, the judge ordered a bench warrant for his arrest.

Brendan was on the run again. He could not stop running. From what, I don’t know.

I drove home, thinking about how all this had happened in such a short time. It was only about six months since I had first met him. Late that night, as I was sitting down, the back door opened and in walked Brendan.

He wanted to know how the court had gone. He was in no way surprised at the outcome, saying simply, ‘So I’m on the run.’ I would like to have been able to tell him I didn’t care, but I couldn't. I told him that the guards had orders to arrest him and that he couldn’t stay at my home any more.

Before coming home from court that day, I had talked with Superintendent McCarthy and we had both agreed to a plan for his arrest. According to the plan, I would let him sleep at my house and he would send two officers to arrest him at two or three in the morning when he would be asleep. The officers would pretend to be angry with me for keeping or hiding him.

It was a very emotional night for me and for my family. The two officers arrived very quietly and I showed them to the bedroom where Brendan and my son were asleep. They woke him up gently. He asked them what they wanted.

When they said they were here to arrest him, he asked them ‘Can’t you come back in the morning’. I couldn’t believe it.

One officer was being a little angry at me — as planned. Brendan looked so relaxed and agreeable that they didn’t bother to handcuff him. They were also sensitive to the fact that my children were present.

As we came down the stairs, he was between the two officers. One officer moved a little too far ahead, giving Brendan an opportunity to escape. In a second, he was gone like a shot back up the stairs and out a window.

Of course, he knew the layout of the house and the surrounding area, even in the dark. They had no chance of catching him.

I felt so sorry for them that I told them I would explain to Superintendent McCarthy what had happened, which I did.

This was the last time Brendan stayed at my house. He was now on a downward spiral. He was a fifteen-and-a-half-year-old teenager out of control.

Brendan lived rough for a day before he came back looking for food. We waited to let him settle down. Then he stole two hundred pounds from my son, Kevin. Kevin kept the money in a box in his bedroom.

On 3 September, he stole Denis Tirnan’s car. Denis arrived at my home within twenty minutes of discovering that his car was gone. We took off after him. I was in contact with Killaloe garda station, and we drove to Portumma.

I was out driving all night and at about three in the morning, I again contacted Killaloe station. They reported no sighting of him. The guard on duty told me to get a couple of hours’ sleep. The guards were also searching for him. I started driving the forest roads and went to high points to see if I could pick out the headlamps of a car.

At about 6.30 in the morning, I found the car burning. The front wheel had come off the road and, as it was a front-wheel drive, Brendan had been unable to get it back on the road. As it happens, this was the entrance to the forest road where the bodies of his victims were found over four years later.

I had to go and tell Denis and his sister Rose that their car was burned out. Naturally, they were upset. There was stuff in the car that their late father, a boat-builder, had made and, of course, it had been burned. They had to replace the car at their own expense.

A few days later, Brendan came back to my house and agreed to return to Trinity House if the people from there came for him and not the guards. I phoned the detention centre and it was agreed that a car would be sent down from Dublin to Mountshannon for him.

I called Joe Duffy, a supervisor in the forest. I told him I needed Denis Woods to help with Brendan until he was picked up by the people from Trinity House. The journey from Dublin to my house takes about three hours by car.

Denis came to the house and stayed with Brendan for several hours, talking to him. Brendan said that he knew that Denis was there to prevent him from running away again.

When the Trinity House officers came for him, Brendan seemed happy to see them. I believe that he was happy he wasn’t going to jail. He returned with them to Dublin.

About six weeks after returning to Trinity House, in November 1989, Brendan was released on a weekend pass. He again failed to return after his pass had expired. Instead, he went on the rampage.

He stole Marcus Bogenberger’s car. Marcus Bogenberger is the son of Maxie Bogenberger from whom he had stolen his first car after Mary had gone to hospital. Brendan was driving around for a few days in this car and hid it in Tim Reeves’ cattle yard for a while. Tim Reeves notified Garda O’Hara but when the guard came to see the car some time later, it was gone.

While driving Marcus Bogenberger’s car, Brendan passed my son, Brendan, on the road, but he didn’t stop or talk to him. A short time later, he was driving on a narrow road near our home (Carroll’s Road) when he was met by Sean Allen. I think Marcus Bogenberger was travelling in the car with Sean Allen. When Brendan saw who they were, he jumped out of the car he was driving and ran into the forest. Marcus got his undamaged car back.

Brendan remained in the area. The next car he stole and crashed was Kinneallys’. Interestingly, he stole this car from outside Fr Tom McNamara’s house. Why he was there when he had previously tried to keep away from the priest, I do not know.

Brendan was finally arrested at Shannon Airport, trying to escape to England. Prior to that, he had broken into Hans Mollidor’s house from where he had stolen whisky and a leather jacket. In breaking into Mollider’s house, he smashed a big, double-glazed window. The window let off a loud, explosive bang. Locals came to the house when they heard the noise but there was no sign of anyone when they got there.

I got acall about it straightaway. I went to Mollidor’s with my son, Brendan, and brother-in-law, Dermot O’Sullivan. We searched the woods. The guards arrived about thirty minutes later. Hans had a lot of tools in the house, and I remember one guard asking me if there was a Hilty nail gun in the house. I said that there wasn't. It’s interesting, however, that a guard considered him dangerous even in 1989. At close range, a Hilty nail gun can be a dangerous weapon.

Brendan must have been hungry and cold that night. There was no food in the house, but he had taken a bottle of whisky and a coat anyway. Taking the whisky was unusual for him since he didn’t like drink very much.

Denis Woods and I stayed all night in Mollidor’s house. Although it was very cold, we couldn’t switch on the central heating as it would have made too much noise. I thought he might come back and I was afraid that he would set fire to the house. We already knew that he would always try to destroy evidence that could connect him to a crime.

Some time later, I met Denis Woods and I noticed that he had a limp. I asked him what had happened and he told me that he had hit his knee off a wall next to his bed while he was asleep. Denis later told JJ that he had, in fact, had a disturbing dream in which both Brendan and I featured.

In this dream, Denis heard the phone ringing and went to answer it. It was me on the line, and I told him that Brendan was in the forest about seventy yards across from the front of my house,

and that he had a gun and was planning to shoot someone. I asked him to go into the forest to talk to Brendan and persuade him to give up the gun. After much debate, Denis agreed to see what

he could do and drove to my house, and, at my direction, walked into the forest. When he entered the forest, he saw Brendan standing near a tree with a gun in his hands. He tried to persuade him to give up the gun and to come out of the forest. Thinking that Brendan was going to do what he asked him to do, Denis turned to walk from the forest, expecting Brendan to follow him. Just as he turned to walk away, he heard the click of the safety catch being released on the gun and believed that he was about to be shot.

Denis felt himself jump with fear in his sleep. When he jumped, he hit his knee off the wall beside his bed, badly bruising it, and rendering himself barely able to walk for several days.

It was a strange feeling to be hiding out on Dooras Hill with a loaded double-barrel shotgun in my hands all night. I thought I was going crazy. Moreover, I had a loaded gun in my hands to protect myself against a fifteen-and-a-half-year-old boy. Denis Woods was with me and was also wondering what Brendan might do next. Brendan had put fear into us all. Because he was scared, we were scared of what he might do to escape whatever it was that frightened him.

He was on the run again and trying desperately to escape. He found his way to Shannon Airport. Shannon Airport is about thirty-five miles from Mountshannon. He was arrested trying to get a ticket to England.

After his arrest, he was charged with the theft and burning of Denis Tirnan’s car and with breaking into Hans Mollidor’s house. I was in court in Shannon when he was charged.

The judge ordered him sent back to Trinity House to await trial. Trial was scheduled for a later date and was to be held in Tulla, County Clare.

I was feeling down after saying goodbye to him in the Shannon court and an older guard came over to console me. He advised me that when Brendan returned to my house, I should take him out to the mountain shooting, and get him interested in things like that.

I wondered whether I would ever come back if Itook him out to the mountain. The last thing I wanted in his hands was a gun. I had my guns hidden all the time he was with me. But God bless the old guard for his good intentions.

Dr Gerry O’Neill saw Brendan again, in August 1989, after his return to Trinity House, and found no evidence of psychosis, although he did appear vulnerable and displayed poor judgement and a diminished sense of conscience and of right and wrong.

In January 1990, Dr O’Neill again interviewed Brendan. This time he believed him to be very truthful and felt that he spoke ‘from the heart’. On this occasion, Brendan was subdued and depressed about his mother’s death. He admitted to Dr O’Neill that some of the stories he had previously told him were contrived, but said that he had half-believed they were true. The doctor found that Brendan had a fantastic view of the future and saw himself in prison in five years’ time. He had no friends, no ambition to work and had low self-esteem. He seemed, in the words of the doctor, ‘asad, lonely boy’.

Brendan told Dr O’Neill that he thought himself to be mad, as he could not understand some of his own behaviour. The doctor believed that he had reached ‘the real Brendan’ and that Brendan was, probably for the first time, discussing his real feelings.

Two guards from here went to Trinity House to question Brendan about the break-in at Hans Mollider’s house. Brendan later told me that one of these guards told him that I was no friend of his and that I had set him up to be arrested at my house the night he had run away from the two guards.

Telling him this, of course, broke any bond of trust he had with me. He was never very trusting to start with. Later, after he was released from prison, I got a phone call at eleven o’clock one night. The person on the phone warned me to leave Brendan O’Donnell alone. He said that if I didn’t, he would ‘get’ someone close to me. ‘I won’t bother you,’ he said. ‘But I will get someone close to you.’

I knew Brendan’s voice and I believed it was him on the phone. I was very concerned and kept the gun as close to me as possible until I met him and talked to him to see how bad he was. I confronted him about the phone call. He denied having made it.

After the court session in Shannon, I didn’t see Brendan again until he came down to court in Tulla, County Clare, to answer the charges against him. I believe it was early in February 1990. Brendan was now only a month shy of his sixteenth birthday.

When I saw him in court, I had a chance to talk to him. I noticed bandages on his wrist. We had only a short time to talk and I didn’t get a chance to ask him about it.

As far as I can remember, he had the next court session in Ennis for the additional charges. I was there but I got a chance to say only a few words to him. He was sentenced to some extra time.

He was back in Trinity House and I had to go to one more court session in the Circuit Court in Waterford. Justice Sheridan was the judge. At this stage, he must have been tired of looking at me. I didn’t expect any results other than Brendan’s being ordered to serve out his original sentence.

The judge sent him back to Trinity House to serve his time. Then the judge gave an order that my expenses for the Nenagh and Waterford sessions be paid. I was grateful for the assistance.

Brendan later phoned me to ask me whether I was coming up to a case conference. I told him I had been asked to go and I drove up early on the morning of the conference. I think it was the end of March 1990. I took his grandmother, Mary Quinn, and his sister, Ann Marie, with me.

While Mary Quinn and Ann Marie were visiting Brendan, I had a chance to talk to some staff members about him. One of them told me about an alarming incident.

Brendan had been coming back from a weekend pass, and had been waiting some minutes for a car to pick him up at the railway station in Dublin. He later said that while he was sitting there, a train was passing, and he saw a cat run out in front of it and get its head cut off. According to Brendan, there was blood everywhere. Apparently he considered it a very funny story and started

grinning uncontrollably as he told it.