Posted by The disappearance of Marilyn Rynn in 1995, and the subsequent massive Garda search then manhunt was of the most significant murder investigations in modern Irish history. Not only due do the brutality of the crime, but because it became the first Irish case solved through DNA evidence. On Thursday the 21st of December 1995, Marilyn attended her office Christmas party at the Shieling Hotel in Raheny. Later that night, she made her way into the city centre and eventually boarded a Nitelink bus heading west. Shortly after 3:00a.m., the bus dropped her in Blanchardstown on that bitterly cold morning. Like many locals, Marilyn took a shortcut through Tolka Valley Park. Its a dark, wooded corridor running alongside the river. Ironically she may have thought it was late enough to make it safe, thinking that the local kids who caused hassle down there would be either in bed or at parties given the time of year. She was visciously attacked within minutes of leaving the bus. For over two weeks, Marilyn’s disappearance baffled investigators. There were reported sightings, false leads and even rumours that she had been seen alive days later. The weather, while preserving the ground in ice, also slowed the search. Tolka Valley Park is massive and densely wooded, and back then overgrown and treacherous in places. On the 7th of January 1996, a cadaver dog led searchers into a thicket of bushes. Marilyn’s body was found partially concealed, only a short distance from a well-used path. The poor woman had been raped and strangled. The crime scene told a grim story, but it also offered something new, microscopic traces that would change Irish policing forever. DNA profiling was still in its infancy in Ireland in the mid-1990s. Yet forensic scientists were able to recover a viable DNA profile from the scene. What followed was one of the most extensive elimination exercises ever conducted by the Gardaí. Over 2,000 statements were taken. Blood samples were voluntarily collected from 354 local men. It was painstaking, intrusive, and controversial, but it worked. Among those who gave a sample was David Lawler, a local man living near the park who had a reputation for being a bit odd. Like Marilyn, he had been out at a Christmas party that night. He believed himself safe from detection, going so far as to research DNA technology on the early internet, trying to determine whether it posed a real threat. He thought the freezing temperatures would have destroyed any forensic trace. In July 1996, Lawler’s DNA came back as a match. He was arrested and confessed. The murder, he claimed, had been the result of a “spontaneous impulse”. Incidentally Lawler was the first cousin of Larry Murphy, one of Ireland’s most notorious rapists and suspected killer. In 1998, David Lawler pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. As of today, Lawler has served nearly three decades in prison and has reportedly sought or received periods of temporary release. This is a development that has caused deep distress to Marilyn’s family and anger within the local community.
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Who Watches the Watchers? 