Former detective Garda John Sweetman's forensic skills were also called on in the investigation into the shocking killing of Clodagh Hawe, 39, and her three sons by her husband Alan Hawe in 2016.
“There is nothing quite like the smell of a dead body” – one of the opening lines in a gripping memoir by former detective Garda John Sweetman.
John, from Skerries in North Dublin, helped bring countless killers to justice including Richard Burke, who was jailed for 14 years for strangling and beating young mum Jasmine McMonagle to death. John told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “Those letters came to me to be proven as having been written by him. He had written some of those letters after he killed them because they were blood-stained.“I’d be looking at the construction of it. It was quite unnerving that the writing was perfectly neat and tidy. It was chilling. It was the same as other specimens of his writing – there was no sense of him being erratic or stressed.
The evil killer scribbled the words ‘Puck’s Castle’ and ‘Sorry’ before trying to end his life as gardai surrounded his car. He revealed: “Normal day-to-day policing only fed into my lack of confidence, I was very unhappy and considered quitting. “But more often than not with those scenes, you’re going to be working at them for several days, so you quickly get into a different frame of mind.
Quirke was jailed for life for the murder of Bobby Ryan after a trial which made international headlines and became known as the Mr Moonlight case.
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