Living With Evil by Cynthia Owen (ap literature book list txt) 📗

a baby in my family home when I was eleven-years-old, and my baby was stabbed to death and dumped in a laneway.

Nobody had gone to prison for Noleen’s murder. My mother had died peacefully, a free woman. She had got away with murder, while Martin, Michael and Theresa served life sentences of emotional torture and died in appalling circumstances.

My father still had his freedom, despite the public humiliation the inquest had brought him.

I clung on to the hope that I’d get the public inquiry I so desperately wanted, and I was comforted when the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, said he was profoundly disturbed by the facts that came out of the inquest and was going to look at my case. But, it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to get my public inquiry. And there was another setback: my father was calling for a judicial review of the inquest in the High Court.

I was bemused. Why bother if he had nothing to do with Noleen’s conception, birth or death, as he claimed? And where on earth was the money coming from for his substantial legal bills?

I appealed against the decision not to order a public inquiry, but in November 2008 the new Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahearn, said he was sticking by it.

I was devastated. My daughter had been brutally murdered and my life had been ruined by sexual abuse. I wanted to try and meet Mr Ahearn to discuss everything, but unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. The police didn’t re-open Noleen’s murder file, and that meant the only ongoing legal action was my father’s call for the inquest to be reviewed.

My therapist diagnosed me with prolonged post-traumatic stress disorder and I struggled through every day. Simon, as ever, was my rock. He bought me flowers, gave me hugs and tried his best to keep my spirits up. He and Christopher had been my saviours, and I owed it to them to pull myself together and get back to some sort of normality.

Christmas was coming, and I was looking forward to spending some peaceful, happy time with my family. The house was twinkling with decorations when the phone rang, on 12 December 2008. It was Gerry, bearing news of another death in the Murphy family. This time it was my father. Peter Murphy senior had died of ill health at the age of eighty-two, his bid for a judicial review still outstanding. He had tortured me to his dying day.

I broke down in tears when I told Simon and Christopher. ‘He never served one day behind bars,’ I sobbed. ‘How can this happen?’ The three of us just crumbled. I felt robbed of justice, and Simon and Christopher were seething with anger.

My faith helped me survive. I do believe in God, because I don’t know how I could possibly have survived that house of horrors alone. I marvel every day at how lucky I am to have survived my childhood, while Martin, Michael and Theresa didn’t.

Epilogue

My son Christopher is twenty-two now, and I am very proud to say he is a happy, loving and capable man. My other son is twenty-eight-years-old.

Simon’s love keeps me going in my darkest moments. He makes me smile and laugh, and I feel so blessed. I love to walk in the countryside with my dogs, read books and sit in my garden when the sun shines.

I’m very proud to have written this book. It has helped me enormously, and I can finally rest.

I sleep at night, knowing I did everything I possibly could to tell the truth and get justice for Noleen.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to my childhood friends from Dalkey, without whom I wonder if I would have made it through my teenage years. There are too many to mention, but a special thanks to Maria O’Gorman, Michelle Hanlon, Marie Farrell, and Sheila MacGowan, and their families. To Collie and Anthony Howard, I wish you peace wherever you are. To Catherine and Alan. To Brian O’Farrell and Kevin Harran, Dave and Bridget, Christian and Elena. To Geraldine Green, Maria Kelly Whelan and Bernice Farrell. To Margot Hutton. To Shane Brien and Uinsionn Macdubhgaill, the two boys who found my daughter’s body in April 1973, when they were only eleven years old. To my friends from the Tech in Dun Laoghaire, and to the staff at the old Technical College in Dun Laoghaire. To my friends in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. To the teachers at Newark and Sherwood Secretarial School for accepting me and for educating me and, in particular, thanks to Sue Bird. To Dr Elisabeth Noble and Dr Saffman from the Eastfield Surgery. To Dr Pauline Graham at Scarborough Hospital. To my legal team, Gerry Dunne and John O’Brien, and all the staff at O’Brien Dunne Solicitors. To Kieron Wood (BL) Michael Forde (SC) And special thanks to the many barristers and solicitors who looked at my case over the years in an effort to help me. To Pol O’Murchu, Felix McEnroy, James Nugent, Mary Ellen Ring and Paul McDermott. To Alan Shatter, TD and lawyer. To Albert Owen MP/AS and the staff at his local office, who treated me with respect and sensitivity, a big thank you for sticking with me, and to your secretary at the Houses of Parliament, Gerwyn Jones. To Colm O’Gorman and Deirdre Fitzpatrick and the staff at OneinFour. To Barry Cummins (RTE), Brighid McLaughlin (Sunday Independent) and to all the people who supported me both in the community of Dalkey and the surrounding areas, to those who sent me flowers, cards, letters, and emails; a big thank you from my family and I. To Dr Dawn Henderson. To Nona and Jodie. To the coroner Brian Farrell, thank you for being sensitive to my loss. To the coroner Kieran Gerathy and his secretary Ciara, thank you for doing your job. To Fr Aquinas Duffy and David Linehan from Missing Persons for the support you gave me when my brother Michael was missing, and for your much needed advice and experience. To