Burglars set fire to house ‘to hide DNA’ after lying in wait to watch victims leave for mass

 • 3h ago

A ruthless burglary gang set fire to a house in an apparent attempt to destroy evidence after they ransacked it.

The shocking arson attack occurred after the gang put two people under surveillance as they left for mass in rural Co Carlow on Sunday. The break-in was one of three burglaries across Carlow and Meath that morning.

A Tallaght-based crime gang are the chief suspects in all three. The gang are also chief suspects for a separate burglary that took place in the Kilcloon area of Co Meath later that morning at 11.40am, when a home occupied by an 81-year-old woman was targeted as she attended mass.

The back door of her property was forced in and a sum of around €7,000 in cash was stolen by the criminal gang.

A dark-coloured Audi hatchback has been identified as a vehicle of interest in the burglary spree.

One of the victims of the Carlow burglary, a farmer in his 60s who does not want to be named, told the Irish Independent that he returned from mass to find his home ablaze.

The burglary gang lay in wait on a quiet country lane until the farmer left for mass before breaking into his home through the front door.

“I went out of here at 9am and it looks like I met one of their cars on the lane. It’s a quiet cul-de-sac where I was born and grew up and I’d know most cars on it, but the driver in this car waved at me as if to divert my eyes from the registration plate,” said the shaken farmer yesterday.

“As I was driving back at 9.45am, I saw smoke on the laneway, and when I turned in I could see flames shooting out the front door of the house. I ran in the back door and started filling the sink. The whole stairs was on fire and there was stuff piled up under the stairs in flames.

“I was trying to quench it as best I could, and I ran out and connected the hose to a tap.

“Then I met my elderly neighbour, who is a relative of mine, and she told me that her house had just been burgled, so that’s when I realised what had happened to my house.

“I was throwing water on the stairs, and I could hear cracking sounds upstairs, so I knew the flames had spread. I got up to the landing and then there was a bang as a deodorant can exploded.

“I couldn’t see two feet in front of me with the smoke, and I was throwing water over the bedroom door, but then I knew I had to get out. The smoke was too much. I thought the house was gone but the fire brigade arrived from Tullow and helped put out the flames,” he added.

The farmer had to be hospitalised for smoke inhalation after desperately trying to beat back the flames.

“It’s very hard to take in. I was angry and shocked when it happened, and now I’m just gutted and upset. I really want to thank our neighbours for all their help. They all worked to help us. It will be a long while before we can move back in,” he said.

“We’ve never had any trouble here before. I was born and reared on this lane. I just can’t understand how anyone could do such a callous thing.”

The man’s wife said that all their family photographs have been lost in the fire.

“When you’re our age, you’ve built up your home. You have the few things that make you comfortable, like a couch or a bed. But we’ve lost it all now between fire and smoke and water. This is a trauma in what are supposed to be your golden years. I just can’t understand the malice and thuggery of it,” she said.

“They took a locked filing cabinet from under the stairs in my house,” her husband added, “but all that was in it was passports and birth certificates and things like that. It was found burned out on the Curragh later in the morning”.

The couple’s elderly relative, who lives nearby, was also targeted, with CCTV evidence suggesting she was followed from her home to her local church by the brazen thugs who then returned to rob her.

There are indications the raiders also cleaned each room in her house with a chemical before they left the scene.

A dark-coloured Audi hatchback has been identified as a vehicle of interest in all three burglaries.

Officers from Tullow garda station are leading the investigation and one line of inquiry is whether one of the burglars left DNA evidence behind and was trying to destroy it when they set the house alight.

There was little of value in the Carlow houses that were ransacked. No arrests have yet been made.