Grainne Canavan is a former resident of 9 Wellington Terrace in Cork whose teenage search for independence placed her alongside people who would later become central to a disturbing murder investigation.

In this episode of Life by Misadventure, Grainne remembers living with Fred Flannery, her friendship with missing man Cathal O'Brien, the disappearances connected to the house, and how she gradually came to understand what may have happened after she left.

Grainne reflects on the unsettling truth that people aren't simply good or bad, and how someone she remembers treating her with kindness could also be connected to events she has spent decades trying to understand.

Blog post with images can be found on the show website at https://www.lifebymisadventure.com/blog/i-lived-with-a-serial-killer-inside-corks-house-of-horrors/

--

About the Show

Life by Misadventure is hosted by David Brown and features honest, engaging conversations with interesting people about life, loss, resilience, ideas, and the experiences that shape us.

Connect with David on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/4dmbrown/

Watch on YouTube:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuZnxBLBaCFU7seF6CvslECdaNyjkRSgV&si=BqJzc0FX1FvuaBvJ

Listen on Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/life-by-misadventure/id1782077287

Listen on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/6Z1MszCU19QglChFb11Pw2?si=98ab1a34db074b3d

Grania, what was your misadventure?

My misadventure was that When I was 18, I lived in a house where many people went missing and was basically living with a serial killer.

Hello, David here.

I just wanted to add a quick note before we get into this episode because unfortunately there was a technical difficulty in the recording of the video. So what I've done is I've actually just edited up the audio version and that will be the main version of the podcast for this show.

And I will put up a video, an uncut video on YouTube, but I'm just warning everybody that it could be pretty choppy and it may get a little bit out of sync everywhere. But I've. I just thought some people might want to see the uncut version.

So I will put that on YouTube, but the main version of the show will be audio. The other thing is, is that in the recording we do mention, and I said I would put some of the photos and the images on the screen for people to see.

Unfortunately, because it's going to be a mainly audio version this time, we can't do that.

So what I will do is I will put it in a blog post on the Life by Misadventure website, which [email protected] and yeah, so if you go there, there'll be a blog post sort of summarizing the story and I will drop all the images in there.

So if you want to see pictures of the house and of some of the people involved and the few bits and pieces that I was able to find, then you'll be able to find it there. So, sorry about this. Hopefully we'll have it sorted out by next time, but until then, just enjoy it, keep listening and we'll speak to you soon. Bye.

Bye.

This is one of our most awaited conversations, I have to say, because I have mentioned to a few people before that that I'd hoped that you would come on and have a chat with me and people are very interested and.

But I think before we get too far into the story of the house and all that sort of thing, maybe we just take a little bit of step back because I think having some context about what it was like living in Cork and what Ireland was like and all that in the beginning will help people understand why you eventually ended up living there as well and sort of what the situation was in the house. So maybe if you start off like, what did your parents do for a living?

Well, my parents met in Belfast and my dad couldn't get a job up there. So they moved down to Cork and he worked at the mill there. We lived in a place called Rennery out sort of in West Cork in the country.

But my parents split up when I was four and when I was seven we moved with my mom to Cork City. And when people think because I'm Irish, they think that I've had a very traditional upbringing and stuff like that. It wasn't like that at all.

My dad was working class Irish Catholic, my mum was middle class English Protestant. And even back then when they got married, they had to get married outside of the border of Northern Ireland, things like that.

And my mum is and certainly was then what would be like, known as a sort of English hippie to the locals in Cork. And we moved to Cork City and we lived actually with another family who were English that were moving to Cork City too.

And it was a bit mad first of all because there were, I think four of us kids. There was two families that merged there and my mom was pregnant with my youngest sister. And so it was, you know, very different say to the norm.

I remember, you know, sort of waking up there wondering where my mum was and she'd gone off to have my little sister and. But we were living with this family and I think it was just a bit too much, two families living together.

So then we moved to another place, just us and with my sister when she was like a little baby and that. So. But we moved a lot when I was a kid. So I counted when I was 15, which is when I came to live in the area that I'm talking about now.

I'd kind of moved once for every year of my life.

Although in my second home where we live with my dad initially I lived there till I was seven and boarding school I'd count as one of the sort of moves as well. So we'd moved around a lot and we weren't very traditional.

My mom, my mum didn't, wasn't worried about being different and never conformed, shall we say. But I always wanted to just be like everyone else, you know, at school and everything like that.

I wanted to have, you know, both parents living at home. And also there was so much shame. Like part of growing up in Ireland is like the shame is like the fabric of society.

You live under this shame, constant shame. So I felt a lot of shame even as a child coming from a one parent family and all that.

So when we moved to Gratton Hill, my mum always loved like falling in love with these wrecks that she sort of do up and then get bored and we'd move on.

And I remember I had spent probably first two years at boarding school because we lived out in the country and then my mom decided to buy this house, 16 Gratton Hill and I remember seeing it and like I think it was sort of boarded up and you know, massive crack above the doorway going in and you know, quite dark and that. And it was an old sort of. I don't want, I don't know whether you call it sort of a tenement.

It was like a three story house where there would have been servant quarters out the back but I mean that could not be used at all. You know it was in disarray or whatever. But she did do up a fair bit of it.

But I was given, you know, this carriage of a very big bedroom and stuff like this and I was going to be a day dog for a couple what ended up being a couple of years, that's what we'd refer to as being a day pupil at school.

And next door to us there was an unmarried mother's house that was run by nuns that had four bedsits in and where I used, myself and my sister used to go and babysit for the mums and babysit for the local neighborhood to be honest with you.

But the north side of Cork was always known as the bit of the rough side to be honest with you would have been cheaper, cheaper houses there and things like that apart from this one posh place above our street called Montenotti. But it was quite, you know, sort of bleak street kind of full of bohemian, some bohemian characters.

There was a famous poet that lived up the road along with an actor that lived a bit further up the road that was in Glen Row which was the Irish soap opera. He wasn't in it all the time but periodically I think from memory going back from about 30 years ago now.

But my mum had a partner and along with being a teenager and stuff I really needed to sort of.

When I became 18 and I'd finished school and I was having a year off between school and uni because surprisingly to me I'd managed to get myself in to university despite finding exams very difficult. But I'm aware I'm jumping around a lot.

But it's just the way my memory works is because I actually returned to boarding school and I could see my home from my school but because boarding school provided the structure that helped me to focus and study for my exam. So I was aware that I was going to uni in England and that Would be my last year in Ireland, really.

So I wanted to stay in Ireland and then I needed my own space and so I moved up the road.

I had heard from my best friend who lived around the corner now and her brother that there was this house, 9 Wellington Terrace that was on the corner of this hill, kind of gray, bleak looking building, but that they had spare bedsits there. And her brother introduced me to a chap, this small chap that lived there that was going to show us round these bed sets.

And I was initially shown the loft bedset and the one underneath that, across from this gentleman's bedset.

But I was then told when he inquired with the guy who ran the houses that are looked after, you know, taking the rent and stuff like that, that those two were gone. But the room, the bedset underneath him, which was quite a large bed set, was available.

And I, you know, was very excited about having my own little place and not being nagged as any teenager would be, but also just to. To break free, you know, from home and some things I found difficult there. And that is how I met Frederick Flannery.

He was, as I said, quite a small chap and he was very kind, you know, helping me. I think he saw that I was quite a young girl. I'd not. I'd been at boarding school but I'd not lived by myself.

I didn't have much stuff with me, like I, you know, I remember him, you know, lending me a frying pan because I didn't have a frying pan. Things, things like that.

But yeah, it's become a bit of a strange story, I guess because of what happened following a few months after I left the house.

But initially he was very kind to me and his family were very kind to me, basically because there are certain things that back at that time in Ireland, jobs were impossible to find. My goal was to get a little job if I could. But in the meantime a lot of people were on benefits because, you know, that's, that's the way it was.

A lot of the people in the area were on benefits. Freddie was certainly on. On benefits. And so you'd get like your dull money and I'd be hoping to get the rent allowance to cover the rent.

I remember the rent being, I think it was 30 pounds a week and the rent. This will be relevant, but it seems like a small detail.

You had to go around to these various departments to get your dole sorted, to get the processes to receive that and a different department for the rent allowance. And because it was Only a stone's throw up from where I lived.

My family home was the second house on the street and literally, you know, probably 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, about 5, 6 houses up on the corner where it splits between Wellington Terrace and Grattan Hill, that this house was on the corner. So they didn't know whether I. Well, they were suspicious of why a girl of that age would move out of home yet still live quite close by.

But, you know, my best friend was there. It was what I knew it had become available, things like that. But he kind of took me under his wing and was basically like.

He had a motorbike and he'd. I'd be on the back of his motorbike, he'd give me a lift to the various departments. He took me round to his mom's house, bless her.

He took me round to his twin brother's house. I remember them, gave me this lamp to use that they had gone spare. And, you know, another friend of mine dropped off this really old.

Well, it seemed amazing then the sort of pocket TV which the screen was like a matchbox size and the outer parts of it were far bigger black and white TV for me. So people were being kind, you know, like giving me bits and pieces here. And so he.

And because the rent allowance people, you know, they were dubious and it wasn't, you know, I kept hoping and hoping that this was going to come through and even he even took me to the local MP to ring them up to see, you know, how this was getting on.

So he really did sort of how he advised me, you know, on how to wash our clothes by standing in the shower and scrubbing brush, scrubbing the clothes, washing them that way and just little bits and things like this. He used to bring me Irish stew that he'd make. He come down making, giving me Irish stew. I ate mate meat.

Then within a year later I become a vegetarian, but that's a different story. But I'm not related, not related to the Irish stew.

But he also, you know, and he's the other two chaps that moved in at the same time as me who had taken the rooms that I had initially saw were called Kahl and Connor and Kohl lived in the loft apartment and Connor was in the bedsit opposite Freddy's. So to go back to the house, you know, you go through the door, very sort of gray, gloomy hallway.

Seem to remember, you know, there was bits at the side where your post would be left for you if you had any. You go up the staircase and my Room was on the right and what was the only bathroom, it had a shower room and a toilet was opposite my bedset.

And then up the following stairs. There was Freddy on the right above mine. His bedset was smaller than mine. And then Connor's.

I remember Connors seemed to have wood paneling that kind of stuck out in my head. And then the little. The loft apartment and Freddy's beds is where we all congregated.

And when we say all, Connor seemed to keep himself to himself more. But myself and Kahl and other visitors used to go to Freddy's.

We'd all be there and he had, you know, in some reports and things like that, they talk about an untidy, unkept gloomy place. But yes, the house was gloomy and the bedsits were nothing to write home about. A tiny cooker, a tiny fridge.

I remember them being cold because I remember sitting up on the side with the electric heater on and, sorry, the, the rings on the cooker to keep myself warm. But Freddie, he had his color gas, his color gas heater.

I remember sitting next to that, toasting myself on that because it was cold and what have you. But he'd always, you know, you know, I seem to remember he like make us cups of tea and all that. I remember him making rock cakes.

And he was quite a tidy man that liked things in certain places from memory and he, he had himself sorted sort of a thing.

But when I, you know, like he did, he did tell me he had a criminal past and he said that him and his friends and his twin brother were petty thieves is what he said. And I have asked myself, would that not have rung any bells in my head initially? But you know, he was very kind to me.

There was no bearing in mind I was a young girl and that. There was no, like, he was just friendly, there was nothing untoward. And he's. No agenda. No, no.

And he did, he seemed to have an on and off partner that used to come round the flat as well with his son and a son that he claimed as his own.

And his nephew used to come around there, but his twin brother John also was around there a lot and we'd congregate there, talk about stuff, have a cup of tea, rock cake or some Irish stew country. Those are the two things that seem to stick in my head.

So it's. It sounds like it was just pretty normal.

Yeah, I mean they did, you know, I have heard, you know, oh, it was Den of Inequity or something like that, you know, with Loads of drink and all that, but I don't remember it being that. I don't remember us ever drinking there, to be honest with you. I know that they smoked hash. I wasn't interested in that.

I've always been a non smoker as well.

And so they would take that and himself and Colin, Freddie would share a joint and stuff like that, but I don't remember any drunkenness or anything like that.

I do know that they used to go to the fields of Glanmar to look for magic mushrooms and they'd be out all night and that was something that they did every so often. I don't. I couldn't give you a timeline at all, but I wouldn't be involved in it, you know, that didn't interest me at all.

Yeah, so.

So when you lived there, was there anything that at all that you think when you were there that you just kind of flagged as like a bit of a red flag or was it just like, literally just seemed like a totally lovely guy.

And there was one time where he turned on me and I. I don't know why he. He was definitely smoking hash. I don't know if, like. And he wanted me to smoke cash and he was being not very nice, shall we say. And.

And he said to me, gran, you're either with me or you're not. And I went downstairs because I, like, he was just being nasty, which I was surprised. I hadn't done anything and I didn't want to take.

I didn't want to take the joint or go down that route, to be honest with you.

So then I, like, he came down the following day and I remember him walking down the stairs to me and I don't know, was I just about to go out or whatever. And he was really shamefaced, like, he was mortified. He couldn't even look at me, couldn't talk to me.

And he had a pot of Irish stew, which he gave me, and I went, no, no, you're. And he made me take it. Um. And I was like, I'm not going up there. You know. You know, he turned to me, I didn't do anything wrong or whatever.

And I remember he's his partner, on, off partner coming down going, come on, Granja, come up, come up. Like, she came down. You know, I don't even remember kind of saying, oh, he didn't mean.

Or whatever I was saying, you know, he was nasty to me or whatever. And she was like, come on, come on, that's all over, whatever.

And she convinced me to go up and it was kind of like nothing had happened, it wasn't mentioned or anything like that. But yeah, that. And I don't know if that was some of the reason of the beginning of why I decided to leave there.

I was only there around three months in all, but it was kind of like pretty sort of intense friendship where you're kind of together all the time time really.

But you know, I'm obviously looking sort of 30 odd years on now, so it's hard to remember day to day but the certain things that stick in my head, you know. And yeah, so I, I have sort of tried to work out when I decided to leave there.

The thing was it was pretty difficult because I hadn't been given this rent allowance. So after a dole, I think it was £55 60. I have that amount in my head. I was living on £25 50 to, you know, for everything else.

And I remember, you know, visiting St. Vincent de Paul as well, asking for money, you know, because I can't. It was probably Freddie who told me or someone else that they'll give you a food voucher that you can spend at the local shops on food.

And I remember I went there twice to St. Vincent de Paul that were in the local church down the road and then giving me a ten pound voucher which I had to spend at the local shops.

And I remember like a bit of a cringe, feeling a bit cringey about this because these were people I'd known for years and there I'm going in with this St. Vincent de Paul voucher.

And then the second time he came with me and he went asking for money too and I needed some shoes and they gave me a voucher for shoes along with a 10 pound voucher.

But because I'd already been in and they seen that we were from the same house, they only gave him a voucher for food, they didn't give him anything else. But I remember him driving me to the shoe shop to get money for or to get a pair of boots sort of a thing. So it was all that.

And I was consistently trying to apply for jobs.

Like I remember applying for McDonald's and there was three days of interview because they paid three pounds an hour in most places, paid two pounds an hour.

And I remember the, the, the guy who was doing the interviewing like trying to work out like why I was living by myself at this young age and me not really wanting to, to say why I was and that. And just then again this sort of shame that I was in this situation that was very unusual.

I remember him saying, for a girl of my age and what have you and still not getting the job there. So I think, and I assume, like it was just quite hard to live. I did have a boyfriend that I'd see in Galway every three weeks.

I think he'd either come down or I'd get the bus there. But I think he gave me the money to go up there. So it was like pretty poor.

I mean, if you think of a, you know, I was there sitting, warming my hands on this electric ring.

And also I remember, like, just to give you an idea of the bedset that the fellow that was in the bedset before me, apparently he had actually lived in Freddy's bedset. But they swapped rooms and this fellow took his mattress with him downstairs.

And the reason why it would be because he must have been an avid bed wetter. And so I was sleeping on this manky mattress that had some sort of plastic on some of it, you know, obviously I had a sheet and all that.

But this is the kind of, you know, not very.

And when you think as well like, and when I think of, say, particularly my daughter, if she were to move in a house where there are 1, 2, 3, 4 other blokes in, in the place, in. In these bedsits and, you know, pretty grim.

I mean, it wasn't terrible, you know, there was running water and electricity, but it wasn't a palace at all, obviously. But there were a lot of grim beds and flats around at that time, you know. And you took what was available.

That was sort of autumn of 93.

Yeah.

So because you came up, you. You left around Christmas, is that right?

So you moved out. I left my home in 16 Gratton Hill. I think it would have been around the September, somewhere around then. And I was there till or late August.

I was there till. It must have been before Christmas because I certainly didn't have Christmas there. But I was still there in part of December. Yes.

So I moved back home.

And then you went back to school.

This opportunity, it's like a local government course came up to do retail. It was a City and Guilds thing. And because it was so hard to get jobs, this was going to help me to do it.

And I seem to remember it was about a six month course, so I did that. But I didn't really see. Once I'd left there, I didn't really see Freddie and that so often, I guess because I was going out to where this course was.

I'd met a Load of friends on the course. And yeah, so instead of getting the deal, we were getting paid to att this course.

And I had heard somewhere around this time from Conor who had moved in at the same time as me and Connor and Kahal knew each other. I think it was from uni and he told me that they were missing.

I can't remember exactly when this was because I went and worked in Galway for the summer after doing the false course. Whether it was just before I was leaving to go to England that he told me that they were missing from the house.

Because going back now and checking it first became sort of known that they were missing in the April after I had moved out of there. So when I say they Kahal and this because Kahl was a really lovely lad.

He was 23, he had beautiful long curly hair and he was such a good self wearer. He didn't have a job either, none of us had in the house. He became a volunteer at the Simon Community which looks after homeless people.

And he was really sort of passionate about helping the people that he could have just sat on his arse and not done anything at all.

But he volunteered there and he became very close to some of the men that were staying there and he really worried about them because I remember one time I met him when he was very upset that one of them was going to get kicked out of the Simon.

Now I don't know know if that person was Kevin Ball that he was talking about then, but due to, you know, that as I remember it, the Simon wanted the men to save up some of their dole or whatever to get like a deposit together for a flat. That's what I remember. That might not be absolutely 100% correct, but there was something like that.

But one of these people, I think from what I remember Carl was telling me that they had spent their money, I think on drink. But he was very worried about this person being kicked off.

That's another reason why I know, like how passionate he was about helping these men and things like that. But also for me, apart from that one time where I saw him upset, he always had a lovely smile on his face.

He was just like a really kind, gentle man, I would say.

And bearing in mind, you know, I could have been an annoying little sister type, you know, some 23 year olds wouldn't be bothered chatting to an 18 year old. But, you know, he always had time for me and time for people generally, you know. But Kevin Ball moved into his flat and it was a very small.

When I Say, flat bedset, very small. Pokey. Pokey loft. In the same one. He moved into the same one because.

Did you know Kevin?

No. No, I didn't.

He was there after you?

Yeah, he was there after.

And was Dennis. Did Dennis live there as well, or was he from somewhere else? The Dennis o' Driscoll Dennis, the first.

Person that went missing associated with Freddie?

I don't know. Is that who that is?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

Sorry I'm now jumping you around like that.

Yeah, sorry. I'm there trying to retrieve from my.

Memory a few moments later. Well, we were just transitioning into the. You'd left.

Yeah.

How did you find out? Because it was Kahl.

Kahal. Yeah.

That went missing as the first kind of known one. Right.

Yeah. And I know prior to that, I had heard that Freddy wasn't happy. That Catholic.

I'd invited some of the guys from the Simon back to the flat and that the man who I would later know as Kevin Ball living there. I knew he wasn't happy about that. I also. I didn't really hear that much before I went to England. It kind of blew up while I. When I.

After me going to England, because I then went to go for my degree to Buckinghamshire in a place called High Wycombe. And I must have been in telephone calls of my mother that she said, you know, and. Or in letters as well. I seem to remember that, you know, that.

That people were definitely missing from nine Wellington Terrace and that she was, you know, telling me, I don't know, like, you know.

And it's hard to work out the exact timeline of all of this, but I do know when I was living in the halls that I received, I had gone back at Christmas. That was it. I had gone back at Christmas. More was coming out that they were missing.

And, you know, I didn't initially think it was Freddie because he'd generally been quite kind to me and I was like, surely, you know, he wouldn't do that. I knew that he, you know, wasn't pleased about members of the Simon community being there. I also.

There were a few other things I think he wasn't pleased about something about. I think he had got a dog for Kuchal and Kuchal had left the dog in Kahl's apartment.

There was the door and then straight to the door, there was these steps that would go up to her. And I remember hearing that Kahl would leave the dog barking at the bottom of the stairs when he went out, that he.

Freddie, wasn't very pleased about that either.

Anyway, I remember being home at Christmas and like, I was like, should I speak to the guards or whatever, you know, thinking that, you know, I didn't think that he was guilty initially. But then with conversations with my friend and her brother, you know, more things seemed to.

And I can't remember all these details because it was so long ago, but then I began to see things in a different light, perhaps and, you know, I went back to uni and I do remember the guards ringing me over there and they. Because for some reason there was this rumor that they'd gone to live in England.

Thaddy Cathle and this English chap, Kevin Ball, had gone to live in England. And I remember the guy.

My mum must obviously given them the number and they were saying, we're trying to find Caul and Kevin Bull or, you know, he might have. Might not have referred to him by name, thinking about it. But I said, I don't know where they are.

Last I heard that they were going to England, but I can't. I don't know if that was before, sorry, going back at Christmas or after going back at Christmas. Thinking about it, I'm not too sure.

But I remember the guard, he didn't ask me any more questions. He didn't ask me anything about living there, anything at all. What he did say, which I do remember, oh, hi, Wickham.

That's where the Wickham Wanderers football. And I said, yes, that's, that's right. It was a very short telephone call and I was never contacted again.

But I remember my mom sent to me and this is when. So somewhere in this, Freddy had been arrested because he.

It turned out that the guy who lived in my bedsit after me, who was his friend called Pa Patrick. I can't remember his surname off the top of my head, but he had a patch. And I had heard a lot about this friend from Freddy.

I never actually met him, but he had also gone missing. And him and Freddy were friends, I think from teenage years. And basically they had been in a car accident where I think Freddy was driving the car.

They had stolen a car and there was an accident and Pa lost his eye and he's waiting for compensation from this accident that Freddy had.

He had told me himself that Pa would give them some of the money, which is odd way of, you know, like, it was like, oh, yeah, he'll definitely give us some of the money. But when you think about that, there was this expectation that he should have some of the compensation in an accident where he was Driving the car.

Simon, remember it when Pa had, I think, had quite a few injuries, but had lost his actual eye.

Yeah, yeah. That was the thing. Yeah. Freddie was driving.

Yeah. And Pa moved into my bedset after me. I don't remember seeing him. I don't ever remember meeting him. But he had gone missing.

And I just got snippets from my mum back, you know, and there was a long time I didn't go back to England, to Ireland that often from England. But I remember when I thought, oh, my God, he has.

He has done it because his nephew, who I had met on several occasions, was a witness for the prosecution.

That was Michael.

Yeah, yeah. And I had met him. He, you know, he was close to Freddie. And I thought, this has to be true because.

And what the newspaper described was where he was talking about Pa and when Pa went missing and Freddy telling him that he had killed Pa because he had seen a foot with a diamond sock on it. And there was also something, I think, about Paz I being in a matchbox and saying, oh, you have to be good because Pa is watching you.

And I could see him making that sort of a joke. But just the fact that his nephew was a witness for the prosecution, I knew that it has to be true because they were really close.

He was round the flat quite. You know, I met him on a number of Cajuns up in Freddie's room, around the little round table that Freddy had that we sat round and I.

You'd hear just odd things over that time, but like, I remember Mum saying, you know, the forensics were at the house and stuff like that, but it's hard. And then I remember, because, funnily enough, my mother, which I hadn't mentioned when you talked about careers.

My mother trained as a teacher and didn't particularly like teaching teenagers, but worked as a prison teacher for many years. And she actually met Freddie in prison one time and he swore blind he didn't do it while he was being held on remand or something like that.

But, you know, it had gone to the high Courts in Dublin and what have you. And the next thing I heard was that he was free due to misconduct on the Guardi's side. There had been many reports.

I think there was like a crime watch program where they had appealed for any sightings of Pa and people had reported sightings of him. Some of them weren't correct. Apparently there was another guy with a path on. On a different eye and.

But some of them were people who knew pad that said they saw him after that, the date that he was known to be missing and that there was other things. There was something else that the Guardi didn't do, but they didn't. Oh, that was it.

It was to do with the nephew because he had some drug issues, drug and alcohol issues, I think, and that he may have been under the influence when he first gave his account to the Guardian.

That wasn't disclosed along with these papers weren't made available, I think, for the defense team or whoever it was, but that it was found that they were sort of hidden, these details, shall we say, or not being transparent about them. So he couldn't have a fair trial and he was. Yeah. And so he was acquitted and wouldn't be able to be retried for that crime again.

And not long afterwards, I think, you know, a dog walker found the remains of Pa with a foot, with a diamond sarkone up, but he couldn't be retried again. And sorry, Kahl and Kevin Ball's body has never been found.

There's been, you know, the Guardian investigated certain locations, including, I think, behind Freddie's mother's house as well. Sorry. It's sometimes hard to remember things that I wasn't actually present for, if you know what I mean.

I tend to need visual reminders of, you know, what happened sort of afterwards just to remind me how. Of the timelines involved.

But I think I put it all in a box for many years until I was watching a documentary about another famous Irish murder case where this Sophie Planter DaCosta, it's a bit difficult to remember her surname in West Cork. And there were two documentaries, one on Netflix and one on sky, and it just made me.

Oh, she. The French actress.

Yes.

Yeah. So, yeah, if you search Cork murders, that's. That's the only story. Yes, really, that comes up.

To get this story, you have to search very specifically.

Yeah. You have to know what you're looking for.

You have to know what you're looking for. And I'll put some links in the show notes for people who want to go and see it. And just so everybody knows, I have.

I have several of the pictures from loads of the newspaper articles and stuff like that. So I will have dropped them into the. Into the show as we go along.

So when we talk about the house, I have a picture of the house and I have, you know, pictures of all the people. So I will have dropped those in already. So everybody will know. But, yeah, I know the one that you're talking about because that's the biggest.

Yeah, that's because, you know, it involves this beautiful lady who very sadly was horrifically murdered and who was part of, you know, the film world in France, married to a famous director, I think it was, or producer, rather so. And, you know, that is quite a story and it's in itself that, you know. And so I watched the two documentaries and it's all.

And oddly enough, I was reminded of my time back in Cork again, because the chief suspect there, I was actually at boarding schools with one of his stepdaughters and she was on it. And it just made me think of my time back then, which, you know, wasn't. There were lots. Also, myself and my sister sounded quite different.

We were always different to the people at home, if you know what I mean. And so. And it was. Wasn't the happiest of times, so I think this is where I had put it in a box. But it made me think of Carl again.

And I saw that his dad was asking for anyone with any bit of information, no matter how small it was. And I just remember talking to my sister and just thinking of my own sons who are not that far off Kahal's age when he disappeared.

And just the goodness of Kahal, that's how I remember him.

Just that if I was a parent, you know, I wouldn't know anything that would solve or find Carl, you know, I think he sought those grandma fields somewhere. I know that they have looked out there, but that I'd want to know as a parent, just any memories or something like that.

So I did ring or I emailed the guardian, I think, and they rung me sometime later and they said, you know, that obviously they knew that he wasn't alive, Kahl, and, you know, they want to be trying to find him. Would I know anywhere? And I just said, you know, out the fields in Glanmire, and did I know where they went?

And I went, no, because I never went there. But, you know, I said, you know, obviously I lived in the house for some time. I knew Freddie quite well then, and, you know, I was friends with Kahl.

And he said, oh, Kahl's dad is an absolute gentleman, he said, and I know he'll definitely want to speak to you. And so I did speak to Kahl's dad, rang me, we arranged a telephone call and we were on the phone for about an hour and a half.

And I was just telling him what I've told ye now, you know, and just that, like, you know, it was definitely a son to be proud of, but yeah, Interesting.

And there's another name that comes up, which is Frank Blackie McCarthy.

Blackie McCarthy. So that's the first missing one, is it? Sorry.

Yeah. He disappeared in February of 93. So, yeah, that would have been before.

Yeah.

So that's because, like I said, where I put it into a box and I haven't thought of it for many years, but I think where I'm processing, I'm trying to write about my experience and just, you know, trying to make sense of some things, why things didn't ring alarm bells at that age and stuff like that, because I'm still sort of examining, like, I don't know if it's a naivety on my part or whatever, that if someone's kind to me, then I wouldn't. But people aren't just one thing. That's what I guess I'm still learning at this age. No one is one thing.

And someone can be very kind to you on one side, but, you know, do monstrous things.

And so while, you know, I was looking back and sort of looking through the old articles and everything and that, what I did find scary is that that lad went missing before I moved into the house. So that. That, you know, he is presumed to have murdered that man. And he would have done that before I moved in. In there.

And, you know, or like, thinking, well, sometimes the best gift is not getting what you want. You know, like, I wanted that rent allowance, do you know what I mean? And I was. And that's.

I'm pretty certain that's why my main reasons for sort of moving back home. And that if I'd got that rental aunt and I was there, then, you know, that God knows what could have happened.

Even though Freddie did say to me that although him and his friends and some of his family were criminals, that they had this unwritten rule that you don't hurt old people or women. And he called them the scum of the earth.

But then, you know, that night when he turned on me or whatever, and because, you know, he killed his teenage friend and apparently it was because he knew about the murder of Kuchal and Kevin Ball. And I think in some of the newspaper articles, it said that he had, you know, said to. He was.

It was bothering him, shall we say, and along to do with this compensation, which I don't know if his family got afterwards, I'm not too sure about that, but that's how he was killed. So there was, you know, and obviously with Kahl, apparently, Kevin Bull.

And this is just from articles I've Read that Kevin Bull had said or had questioned him on why he thought he was entitled to this compensation and.

Or had also spoken to Pat, you know, why are you giving money to someone who is the reason why that you've had this, you know, these injuries and lost your eye? And obviously he didn't like people from the Simon living there. Who knows if drugs were involved, as in whether Freddie was on some or whatever.

And then apparently Kevin was the first to go missing and Kahl was asking after Kevin, like, and, you know, he wouldn't have let that lie, obviously.

So it sounds like that's sort of the thread, right. Is it Kevin that seems like there was an incident with Kevin and then Kahl found out and maybe had something to say about it, and then that happened.

And then, at least this is the theory. And from, again, just for me, doing some amateur sleuthing and then obviously having.

Because we've spoken about this a few times in the past already, that it seems like that's kind of the order of events. And that Patch probably knew that that had happened as well.

Oh, yeah.

And so there's. There's probably some sort of a. And then with the compensation bit, I imagine that came to a head, you know, for some reason.

And if there was this, this, you know, Blackie McCarthy that was earlier, that they, they don't have any evidence for that, but they do loosely seem to tie together to say it kind of makes sense that that probably happened. It kind of feels like that's probably what happened. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

That's the only thing that makes sense, that that timeline seems to make sense. And it seemed. There seemed to be maybe some motives, but we don't know what the, the kind of. The motive was with Kevin that kicked it all off. But.

Well, they think it has to do with him calling Freddie out.

All right, okay.

This is what I've read, you know, or. Sorry, saying either calling Freddie out or saying to Pat about, why would you give someone the compass at Satan that, you know, that caused the sex.

And the thing is, Freddie was a small man. Kahl was taller than Freddy, too, but he, he had, like.

I think he would have been fast moving and, like, had a strength that you wouldn't have expected, you know, so particularly if you weren't. That wasn't going to be on your radar at all, you know, and the thing is, we'll never know because years later he hung himself.

Well, that's. Yeah, that's the end of the story, isn't it? Really Is that, you know, at. At some point, we don't know, but that would seem to.

He obviously had some sort of mental struggles or whatever to do that in the end anyway.

Yeah.

And. And 10 years, basically. 10 Years after.

Yeah, that he did.

And, you know, Kahl's dad went and met him, found him where he was living in a caravan and wore a butcher's apron underneath his clothes, like blessed, you know, trying to ask where his son was. He didn't admit anything.

It does seem suspicious, though. Well.

Oh, yeah, no, it was. It. You know, the thing is his nephew was a witness against him. That's the biggest proof.

And then following, you know, the court case collapsing, then finding the remains of Pa in the way that. And, you know, just. But he was discredited the witness because of his drug and alcohol use.

Yeah. And I think again, when I sort of did my initial research is. I think there's probably two ways you could view the whole case.

And I, I agree with this. The serial killer moniker because of the sock and the foot and the eye. Right. Like a.

You could almost say if somebody lost their temper, if they were high and let's just say, best case scenario, let's. Let's, you know, give Freddie the.

The benefit of the doubt and say maybe he was high on mushrooms, you know, and how to smoke as well at the same time. And, you know, just something happened and he went a bit crazy and he. And he killed someone. You don't keep mementos of that. Right.

If it's kind of just an anger kind of thing, that, for me, that's what makes it more this, puts it into more the serial killer territory. Is that keeping a memento of something like that, that's a bit different.

Yeah. I don't know what. Because I know we know that he buried the foot with the diamond sock. And I think there were different.

So gruesome, but like different parts that were bagged up, awaiting to. From what I've read, from what the nephew said, I don't know what, like whether he did keep the.

I can't say, obviously, that we haven't a clue, but just. I can just see him making that sort of a joke.

But I don't think that's something. I'm not sure. That's not something the nephew would make up.

Oh, no. Like, you know what I mean, it's so specific.

It's very specific and it's, you know, you don't say that about your uncle unless.

Oh, absolutely, they were close.

Exactly. So, you know, I think we have to believe.

Oh, whether he, you know, was potentially.

Under the influence or whatever, that's just something a defense attorney is going to put forward.

Right. So to decrease.

Yeah, you know, that's kind of normal and what you'd expect in a trial type situation. So.

And, but yeah, so the other little wrinkle to this as well is that you also found out that the officer that was sort of the guard that got in trouble basically and caused this trial to fall apart had also had another incident incident, hadn't he?

Well, the, the guard.

Well, yeah, what I found out was that he also worked on, he went after this and worked on that case that we spoke about, you know, the murder in West Cork, that he worked on that and that, you know, there were huge mistakes made there. You know, they lost a massive gate. A massive gate. How can you lose a gate?

And you know, it's also looking, I don't know, like, I don't know, police techniques back then and focusing on one particular person not, you know, doing the due diligence and saying, well no, actually this was some, you know, not a lack of transparency I think definitely.

But I, yeah, I was amazed that having, you know, being quite reprimanded quite severely by the judge for the conduct in this, that he then went on and worked on such a high profile case. I can only think there weren't.

Well, I know that there wasn't that many certainly down West Cork that had that sort of experience that was needed in this case in the murderer of West Cork. Sophie. I can always find her surname difficult to remember. Tasker.

I'll put it in the. Yeah, I know, I can't say it either because it's like a French, it's like a, it's like a double barreled French name.

Yeah,.

That's. Yeah, I don't think I have it in my nights actually. But so I think to summarize, well, a couple things. One is, you know, obviously you were there.

We, we suspect that maybe there was, you know, that maybe he'd done something before, like the year kind of or six months before, nine months before you were there and then you spent some time in the house and then all this stuff happened afterwards.

So what you got was a really interesting view of kind of what normal life was like and you know, what he was like and Freddie and you knew some of the players and I know that what you're doing now is looking into it and potentially thinking about maybe putting a book together or something to write all this up and to talk about everything. That happened. So I would very much look forward to that when it comes out at some point. Have you started it? Have you started it yet?

I have. I have started it. And, you know, like I said, when I was going back through the articles, you know, I was triggered.

I woke up because just thinking that if. And you know, we assume, yes, he did. He is the cause of that other gentleman disappearing in the February before I moved in there.

And I don't know what time Freddie moved into 9 Wellington Terrace. So, yeah, I'm. I think as a way of processing it, because I. It's almost, you know, I remember a lot of things there, but it's weird that I.

It's like it happened to someone else in a sort of a way.

But also because when you look at the newspaper reports and everything like that, and going back to these black and white photographs, you know, that, like, they. That you hear an awful lot about Freddie but not about them. So I would like, you know, just Kahl, you know, he was so.

He was so lovely, generous, mean that, you know, to tell their stories if I can, you know, if I can just to, you know, from, you know, just to. I'm also conscious that, you know, I want. I do. I wouldn't want to upset or anyone writing about it or anything like that.

And, you know, Karl's dad is such a gentleman. And I did say to him, you know, that I try and write about my time there, but it was a difficult time to return to.

So perhaps now's the time just to get it out and sort of process it a bit and just to bring, you know, to show that Kahal and the other gentlemen were more than just the black and white photograph and what happened to them in 9 Wellington Terrace,.

You know, more than just a victim.

Yeah, more than just a victim. And, you know, like, it is known as Cork House of Horrors. I think that was something to do.

It was around the time of Fred west and Rose west, and his name was Freddie. But also, you know, like people say Freddie will have had to have help to some sort of help. And, you know, he's very close to his twin brother.

Well, that's the. Yeah, that's the sort of the allegation I've seen as well. His brother helped him.

Yeah.

And his brother still alive?

I don't think so. I think from the little bit of research that I've done that he's also passed too.

But, you know, that they were a bit like Cork prey twins in a way, to be honest with you. You know, from A large, largest family as well there. And yeah, so I, I am beginning to write about it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, we will look forward to that at some point in the future. You're absolutely. I feel like this is part one of this discussion.

I feel like there's a part two that we'll have at some point where we'll come back and maybe, maybe dig into it a little bit more.

But absolutely, if you, you know, if you do get to the point that you've got a book and you've got something, you know, that you're ready to publish, then we'll have you back to talk about the book for sure.

And I look forward to the Netflix documentary on it as well, because this, I mean, if you look at all of the true crime stuff that is on Netflix all the time, this book absolutely is the type of case that you could make a show out of. And you could probably do, you know, a couple of episodes.

You could do a two part and you could talk about the whole bit around the case in the first bit and then you could talk about the trial and everything and what happened in the trial in the second bit and then kind of what's come out of that. So there's definitely a TV show. And I'll help you with that if you want help with that.

But thank you, but, yeah, thank you very much for coming in and telling us the story.

Thanks for having me.

And we'll have you back if we learn anything new or if anything happens or if there's any developments. We'll definitely get you back in to talk about it again, if that's okay.

Yeah, that's grand. Yeah, thank you.

Thanks, Grania.

Thanks.