Criminals caged over murder of teenager Keane

Judge labels attack heinous and appalling | Top Garda hails the convictions in fight against mob

- NICOLA DONNELLY

A JUDGE has described the killing of Keane Mulready-Woods as a “heinous and appalling crime.” 

Mr Justice Hunt made the comment as he jailed two Drogheda criminals for assisting a crime gang carry out the murder of the teenager.

Serial offender Paul Crosby, 27, was jailed for 10 years while his co-accused Gerard “Rocky” Cruise, 49, was ordered to serve seven years.

Mr Justice Hunt said the pair “must have had some knowledge of the capacities of the person they were assisting”.

He told the Special Criminal Court: “It was a heinous and appalling crime and Keane’s remains were treated in a disgraceful and inhumane way that beggars belief and compounds his family's grief."

Crosby, of Rathmullan Park in Drogheda, and Cruise, formerly of Drogheda and Sherrard Street in Dublin, both admitted facilitating the murder of the 17-year-old between January 11 and 13, 2020.

The maximum each man could have faced was 15 years imprisonment. Mulready-Woods was lured to a house in Rathmullan estate where he was murdered and his body dismembered by gangster Robbie Lawlor using a drill and other implements. Lawlor was shot dead in a gangland-style murder in North Belfast just a few months later.

Senior investigating officer in the murder, Detective Inspector Aidan McCabe told the three judge Special Criminal Court Lawlor was the chief suspect in the killing.