New lead in taxi-driver murder

Date Published: 09-Oct-2007

The hunt for the killer of taxi driver Eileen Costello-O’Shaughnessy 10 years ago is set to be concentrated on Galway city over the coming weeks.

It has been learned by the Sentinel that the investigation into her brutal murder could be refocused on the city and away from a man suspected of killing her and currently serving a prison sentence.

At the moment the case is to be revisited by a specialist team of Garda crime investigators who are trying to progress some unsolved murders. But it has been learned that the focus of attention may well be turned on a number of individuals who were questioned 10 years ago in the days after the murder.

Double murderer Thomas Murray, who is serving life in Castlerea Prison, is a suspect in the case but it is known that he has emphatically denied any involvement in the murder. A Garda source told the Sentinel that Murray was questioned for a 12 hour period during which he repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the murder or being responsible.

The source said that the investigation could be refocused back on Galway city and the possibility that Mrs. Costello-O’Shaughnessy knew her killer.

The taxi driver was murdered on November 30, 1997. She received fatal blows to the head and her body was dumped on a narrow road at Tinker’s Lane, Knockdoemore. Her killer is understood to have driven her taxi back towards Galway and abandoned it at the Lydon House premises on the Tuam Road.

A wide scale murder hunt ensued……