‘animal cunning’ | 

Chilling voice of Ireland’s worst serial killer to be aired on TV

Twisted Kieran Kelly is suspected of killing at least a dozen innocent people

Today at 19:37

CHILLING voice recordings of Ireland’s worst serial killer are set to be broadcast for the first time on national television next week.

Twisted Kieran Kelly is suspected of killing at least a dozen innocent people, many of whom he pushed under tube trains in London.

Laois born Kelly confessed his sick crimes after garrotting a fellow prisoner to death in his jail cell in London in 1983, having just hours earlier been arrested for stealing a gold wedding ring.

During his interview with police, homeless Kelly confessed to a series of brutal murders going back 30 years.

On tape, Kelly recounts his crimes with spine-chilling candour and convinces the police that they are in the presence of Ireland and perhaps Britain’s most prolific and dangerous killer. However, questions remain about the real purpose behind Kelly’s willing confession to the police.

Blending documentary and drama with a unique twist, the two-part TV series tells the story of a killer on the edges of society building on the award-winning podcast series The Nobody Zone, which was first released in 2020.

Recalling the interview, retired Detective Superintendent with London Metropolitan Police Ian Brown tells the TV documentary: “Kelly showed his animal cunning I suppose, the fact that he was playing us at times, and he laughs and eventually agrees with you, but he’s had his five minutes of fun with you”

The Nobody Zone documentary team had exclusive access to 120 minutes of the UK police audio interview with Kelly that forms the basis of the key drama element of the production.

Actor Ned Dennehy plays Kelly in a dramatisation of his extraordinary confession. Using Kelly’s own voice, Ned lip-synchs his performance, bringing to life this incredible scene of a serial killer describing his crimes.

In addition to this dramatised confession, the documentary series had access to an expert team of investigators and documentary makers who have accumulated over eight years of research on the life and exploits of serial killer Kelly.

Other contributors to the documentary include builder Brian Sliman, who employed Kelly as a casual labourer over several years, unaware of his murderous activity but wary of his explosive temper.

“He was skinny, very tough though. I mean he was a tough cookie. If you were in a pub that had music for instance he’d get up on stage, pick up the mic and start!”.” recalled Mr Sliman, who sadly died since giving his interview.

Giving further insight into Kelly, he said: “I think he’d imitate Michael O’ Hehir. He could imitate him. He could commentate on a football match as if he was watching it but he’d have made it up!… how he could do that I don’t know but that was his party piece.”

“He wasn’t a loner as such. He got on well with other people to a degree but all I’d say is when he got drink people tried to avoid him, that was the only problem and it didn’t take him a lot to get drunk by the way, couple of drinks and if you said the wrong thing to him, that was it.”

Rober Mulherne, Author of The Secret Serial Killer: The True Story of Kieran Kelly was also interviewed for the programme, reflects:

“Is Kieran Kelly spinning the police a story? Is he a manipulator? Is Kelly completely mad? On the other hand, is he trying to admit crimes that he didn’t commit in order to confuse the police investigation in the hope that his whole story becomes so unreliable that they can’t convict him on any crime.”

Forensic psychologist Dr Ciara Staunton listens to the recording of Kelly’s confession to police from 1983 and gives her assessment.

“When you just listen to the tape raw you hear a man who is very composed, in the fullness of his mental faculties in that moment,” explains Dr Staunton.

“Also, the manipulation and the arrogance was there. You don’t expect it from someone who’s homeless and an alcoholic, has no means – they come across as a nobody but yet in that interview room he’s well able to exert his own arrogance.

“He’s well able to question the police. ‘Who’s in charge?’ ‘Can I have a cup of tea?’ In his own subtle way, he’s directing what’s going on.”

Kelly was born in Rathdowney, Co Laois and after several years moved to Dublin with his family.

He moved back and forth between Dublin and London and joined the British Army at the age of 18, before being dishonourably discharged in 1951 for going AWOL.

He moved to London permanently in 1960, where he had a number of children and worked in the construction industry, before the breakup of his marriage led him to becoming homeless and to growing alcoholism.

He had mental health issues and spent time at the notorious Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.

When he was arrested in 1983 he claimed to police he had murdered dozens of people, including pushing them under trains, setting them on fire, knifing them as well as poisoning other victims over the space of 30 years.

In June 1984 Kelly was convicted of the 1983 manslaughter of William Boyd, and the murder of another homeless man in 1975, Hector Fisher.

He died at the age of 71 in Durham prison in 2001.

The Nobody Zone– Interview with an Irish Serial Killer on Monday 6th and 13th November at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.