Posted by Murphy was born 1965, in the quiet market town of Baltinglass, County Wicklow. He trained as a carpenter and this trade kept him on the road, moving between towns and building sites. To neighbours and clients, he appeared like any ordinary married bloke.
On the evening of the 11th of February 2000 Murphy abducted a woman in Carlow, forcing her into the boot of his car and driving her deep into the Wicklow Mountains, to a remote area near Spinans Cross. Over several hours, he subjected his victim to repeated rapes and savage assaults. Eventually, he attempted to kill her, suffocating her with a plastic bag.
Miraculously two duck hunters stumbled upon the crimescene and recognised Murphy, a local man in the evil act. Startled, the scumbag fled the scene, leaving his victim alive. When Gardaí arrested him the following morning at his gaff, Murphy reportedly remarked “She was lucky.”
There was no remorse, only irritation his disgusting act and the attempted murder had been interrupted. This didnt feel like some random evil event for Murphy. He was also quoted as saying “Well, she’s alive, isn’t she?”
In 2001, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, a joke of a sentence that already felt inadequate, even before remission reduced it to 10 years. In August 2010, the Beast of Baltinglass walked free.
Throughout the 1990s, a series of women vanished across the east of Ireland, an area later dubbed the Vanishing Triangle. Murphy’s known movements, his violent sexual sadism, and the escalation implied by his 2000 crime placed him squarely at the centre of public suspicion.
A former cellmate claimed that while they were locked up together in Arbour Hill Prison, Murphy confessed to abducting and killing a young woman in Newbridge. Deirdre Jacob, an 18-year-old student had disappeared in Newbridge in 1998. The detail chilled investigators, because Murphy’s name and phone number had been found years earlier on a piece of paper in Deirdre’s grandmother’s shop, where Murphy had once carried out carpentry work.
Murphy has also long been associated with the disappearance of Annie McCarrick, an American student who vanished in 1993. For years, he was considered a prime suspect. However, in June 2025, Gardaí arrested a different man in his sixties in connection with Annie’s murder. He was later released without charge, and reports suggest he was a long-standing suspect known for harassing her.
Media investigations and private inquiries have also linked Murphy, circumstantially but persistently, to other vanished women, Jo Jo Dullard, Fiona Pender, and Ciara Breen. Recent attention has focused on the geography of Wicklow itself.
The documentary series Six Silent Killings revived speculation about souterrains being used to conceal evidence or victims remains. These are ancient underground storage sites and forensic experts have suggested undiscovered souterrains as likely locations.
When Murphy was released from prison, protests erupted across Baltinglass. The dangerous degenerate was not welcome. He left Ireland, spending time in Amsterdam, later the south of Spain, before resurfacing in South London around 2014. There, reportedly working again as a carpenter, possibly under an alias in the anonymity of that huge city.
As of 2026, Murphy remains at liberty in the United Kingdom. He has never been charged in connection with the Vanishing Triangle. He has never been convicted of murder. In his own words “If the Gardaí had any evidence yet to connect me with the cases, I would already have been charged.” But Murphy remains, in the eyes of Gardaí and the public alike, a person of interest.
Who Watches the Watchers? 