Eleven years after the bodies of two missing Dublin men were found bound and buried in a shallow grave on a lake island, Ruth Lawrence (46), the only person to face trial over their deaths, has been found guilty of their murders.
The Central Criminal Court jury, by a majority verdict of 11-1, agreed with the prosecution case that Lawrence shot and worked “as a unit” with her boyfriend, South African national Neville van der Westhuizen, to murder drug dealer Eoin O’Connor (32), after they had lured him to their home in 2014.
The prosecution contended Anthony Keegan (33) was shot by van der Westhuizen. The jury accepted their argument by a majority verdict of 10-2 that there was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt he and Lawrence also acted as a team in that murder, and were equally liable for the outcome.
Lawrence was impassive before the verdict and also did not react when Mr Justice Tony Hunt remanded her in custody until December 8th, when she will be sentenced to life imprisonment.
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The jury, which deliberated for 14 hours, had heard Mr O’Connor sold drugs to van der Westhuizen, who owed the deceased man in the region of €70,000.
They heard evidence that Lawrence had asked about taking a boat out on Lough Sheelin – where the deceaseds’ bodies were eventually found – the day before the men were last seen alive.
The prosecution had also told the jury that the key witness’s account of an alleged admission by Lawrence to shooting Mr O’Connor was corroborated by pathology evidence.
Lawrence, who did not give evidence in the trial and was never interviewed by gardaí, fled to South Africa in the aftermath of the murders and was extradited back to Ireland in May 2023.
The trial heard that, while in South Africa, she feared she would become a victim of human trafficking and had stayed in women’s refuges.
Van der Westhuizen is serving a 15-year sentence in Durban for murder, attempted murder and kidnapping in a separate case. An application to return him to Ireland to face trial will take place when he finishes serving that sentence.
Lawrence, who is originally from Clontarf in Dublin but with an address at Patricks Cottage, Ross, Mountnugent in Co Meath, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Keegan and Mr O’Connor at an unknown location within the State on a date between April 22nd, 2014 and May 26th, 2014, both dates inclusive.
The jury could have returned any of three verdicts in relation to each of the two murder charges against Lawrence: guilty of murder; not guilty of murder but guilty of assisting an offender; or not guilty. The jury was told by the trial judge that the latter verdict was “theoretical”.
The trial heard two protected witnesses: father and daughter Jason and Stacey Symes, came forward to gardaí n 2014, giving statements about Lawrence and van der Westhuizen’s involvement in the murders of the two men.
Ms Symes said Lawrence told her she had shot Mr O’Connor “but it went wrong”, so van der Westhuizen “took over”. The witness said she and her father were asked to help move the bodies.
Lawrence’s defence team claimed Jason and Stacey Symes painted themselves as “innocents abroad” and downplayed their own roles in the incident.
The jurors disagreed with the argument that the two witnesses could not be trusted. The 12 members found Lawrence, as part of a joint enterprise, assisted in a concrete way in the killing of the two men.
The prosecution’s senior counsel, Michael O’Higgins, said Lawrence and her boyfriend acted as a “unit and a ”tag team" to “lure Mr O’Connor to their home to murder him in a ”highly calculated" crime.
