Murder In Limerick: The Grainne Dillion Case

Today our case brings us back to Limrich once more to Limrich city itself. I am very aware that this case is being released on the week of the anniversary of this beautiful young woman. And so, as per my usual, I will be showing the utmost respect for Gro and her family. And I know my lovely viewers will do the same.

 I just ask you all to show a little extra love in the comments for the family and let them know we are all thinking of them on this particularly difficult week. Groad Dylan 24 in 2002 was originally from Anmount in Glanton, Count Cork. Glown Thon is a small village 7 kilometers east of Cork City on the northshore of Cork Harbor.

 Gro grew up here with her father Michael and mother Patricia and siblings EA, Kina, Tomas, Ammy Hall. Gro was affectionately called Grams by her family and friends. She was described by her sister Clina as always smiling and up for a bit of banter. Her mother Patricia said that as well as her infectious sense of fun, she was a responsible young woman who took her job seriously.

Gra was a lifeguard in her early teens and worked as a volunteer in a Polish hospital and part-time in several well-known cork pubs while still in college. Gro was never someone you thought needed protecting. She wasn’t your meek baby sister. She was outgoing, confident, and full of life, said her sister, Cleina.

 After graduating in hotel and leisure management, Gro was accepted onto the jury’s training program in August 2001. Jury’s in at that time was a company of hotels. The program itself was a 2-year rotational scheme for graduates to gain hands-on experience in hotel operations, aiming for management roles with strong support and career progression.

 When Gro got the job at Jury’s in Hotel, now known as Limmerch City Hotel on Lower Malow Street in Limmerch City, she was absolutely delighted. She and her sisters and friends went out that night to celebrate and they stopped off at the hotel to check out what the uniforms were like. Her dad sent her a card saying, “Director in 5 years time.

” This summed up Grana to a tea. She worked very hard at what she did and didn’t take shortcuts. Her end goal was to become a human resource manager. GR settled into her job as assistant trainee manager and she was more than happy with her new position. The staff in the hotel said that every morning she’d be smiling.

 She never stopped smiling. She was so helpful in training the receptionists and even when her family visited her on her coffee break, she couldn’t stay sitting down with them. She would make sure everyone was on top of their work and the clientele were looked after. That was the type of person she was and how devoted she was to her job.

 On the 4th of January 2002, going into the 5th, jury’s in hotel was full to capacity. It was a 150 room hotel and there were at least 300 guests staying that night. GR was on duty that night along with a hotel porter who had only been in the job less than 6 days at this point. So you could say the whole weight of the hotel was on Gro’s shoulders, but she was not daunted by this.

 The porter’s name was Paulo Nasimento. He was 27 years old at the time and had moved to Ireland from Portugal in October 2000 with his Irish girlfriend who was from Limrich. He hated Ireland, more so after he and his girlfriend broke up. All he wanted was to go home, but he had no money. And so he took a job as a porter to earn some money to go home.

 But he knew on a porter’s wages and having to pay for rent and food, it would take him a long time to get back to Portugal. So a plan was made soon after he got his job. And this plan would cost poor Gro her life. Putting his plan into action, he went to the home of his ex-girlfriend’s father, who lived in Castle Troy in Limrich and took a shotgun along with ammunition with the plan of robbing the hotel he was working in to fund his trip back home.

 Once he had acquired the gun, he hid it in the hotel’s attic and waited for his opportunity to rob the hotel. On the morning of the 5th of January at 4:20 a.m., he and Gro were the only two working, and so this put poor Gro in a vulnerable position. At the time, the restaurant of the hotel was downstairs on basement level.

 As she counted the takings of the restaurant and settled the float for the registers for the next day, Paulo approached her holding the single barrel loaded shotgun. At gunpoint, Paulo forced Gro into the kitchen, demanding the keys to the safe, immediately opening fire after Gro said to him, according to Paulo, “This isn’t going to happen.

” He shot her first in her right breast, causing serious injury. With this, he then dragged her to the food pantry, where he put her into a slump position on a seat. He then reloaded the shotgun and shot GR once more, hitting her in the right side of her pelvic region. He then took the keys to the safe, went back upstairs, opened the safe, and emptied its content.

 The amount of cash reported stolen is varied, so I’ll just round it off to €3,000. He also took the tapes from the CCTV. Once this was all done, and with Gro seriously injured, Paulo went back to the pantry, and facing Gro, he shot her one last time in the upper thigh. Later, Dr. John Harbison, the state pathologist, would say Gro died from shock and bleeding out, the latter being the main reason she died.

 The shot to her chest was superficial, but would have immobilized her. But it was the shots to the groin area was what killed her, and she unfortunately would have suffered. Once Paulo had done what he had done, he took Gro’s phone, keys to the safe, gun, and money, put them in a bag, left the hotel, and hid them in a laneway. With this, he fled the scene.

Gro’s body would be later discovered by staff, and the alarm was raised immediately. Once the guard arrived, they shut down the hotel and guests were not allowed leave, including players and officials from the Harley Quinn’s rugby club from London who are in the city for a Heineken Cup fixture with Monster.

Once questioned, they were moved to other accommodation. Gro’s body was examined at the scene by Dr. John Harbison and later removed to the Midwestern Regional Hospital in Limmerch for postmortem. When Guardi examined the CCTV footage, they confirmed that the actual murder was not found on CCTV. At 5:45 a.m.

 that same morning, Paulo turned up at Henry Street Guard Station in Limmerch and reported that there had been a shooting at the hotel. Gardi took a statement from Paulo and then released him, later arresting him at the train station as he tried to leave the jurisdiction. He was questioned again, this time under caution, and eventually Gardi would charge him with the murder of Groia.

 Paulo would plead not guilty at a special sitting of the district criminal court the next morning. He was held on remand at Limrich prison until his trial, which was eventually set for March 2003. On the 9th of January 2002, Gro’s funeral took place at the Sacred Heart Church in Glthon village. GRA’s short life symbolized by special gifts brought to the altar included a photo of her, a picture of her classmates from Cork Institute of Technology, a mobile phone, a scarf, and one of her childhood toys.

Gro would be buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Little Island, less than one mile from her family home. Over a thousand people attended the funeral, including a couple who gave up one of their graveyard plots to the Dillons. The graveyard had recently been extended, and Gro would have been the first to be buried in the new section in a field all on her own.

 So, this couple from Little Island said they could not bear this for the Dylan family and Gro and did what they felt was the right thing to do. When the family went to bring Gro home, their friends and neighbors cut the grass and hedges and took down all the Christmas decorations. The whole village came together to support the Dylan family.

 and for this they are eternally grateful. In March 2003, the trial began at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin. Paulo changed his plea to guilty and was formally found guilty of the murder of Gro and sentenced to life in prison. From the outset, Paulo was very anxious to serve out his time in Portugal and sought a transfer as early as July 2003.

 This would be refused. Another application was heard in the high court in 2006 and was refused. In 2007, the high court heard another application from Paulo. The court received a letter from the minister of justice who had refused the application and it read the refusal was on the basis that the maximum life sentence in Portugal at that time was 25 years and it was not an appropriate life sentence because of the gravity of the crime against Groia.

 This was despite common knowledge and research from the Irish Human Rights Commission showing the average life sentence in Ireland ranged from 12 to 15 years at that time. In the application, it was stated Paulo had no family or friends here in Ireland to visit him. That English was not his first language.

 He was very close to his grandmother and mother who both had health problems, but not so close to his father since he was imprisoned. It was also pointed out that he had to be moved several times. prison to prison as he was at risk from other prisoners. A poor baby. The Dylan family were opposed to the move for obvious reasons.

 They said he murdered Gro and stole money from the hotel in order to move back to Portugal. And if he was transferred, he would get what he wanted. He still sits in prison to this day, but it is an open prison, Shelton Abbey, and he has recently secured day release. The last time Annie of the Dylan family saw Gro was on the 29th of December 2001 before she headed back up to Limrich after the Christmas break.

 They had all met in Epha Landers Bar in Cork, which is now the Oliver Plunket Bar. It is said this bar was named after Epha Landers, who was asked out on a date by a man who told her if she said yes, he would name the bar after her. And so it came to be. I’m telling this little story because from what I read about Gro, she would have got a kick out of it.

 Gro was so popular, Kina said that it showed when they went into the bar. There were three groups of people there, and she knew everyone. She waved at one, said hello to another, and then went up talking to the bar staff. The impact of GRA’s death on the family, however, has been devastating.

 The person who killed GRA didn’t just kill her. To an extent, he killed all her family, said Cleina. Gro’s mother never returned to work, and her father, Michael, and brother, Mihal, ended up in hospital the year after Gro was murdered. Poor Tomas had to return to university in Limmerch to resume his studies, surrounded by memories of his vibrant sister.

 The delay in being informed over Gro’s death still hurts the Dylan family. 3 hours after Gardi and hotel management in Dublin knew she was dead. The family still had not been contacted. Gro’s father, Michael, had turned on the radio that morning to listen to the 9:00 a.m. news and it said that a member of staff had been killed in Jury’s in hotel in Limmerch.

 He immediately rang GR’s mobile and he couldn’t get an answer. He then rang the hotel and the woman on the other end told him that they weren’t taking any calls. He knew instinctively his daughter was dead. The circumstances of Groa’s death were also difficult to accept. She was one of two staff members on duty that night with almost 300 guests. Yet, she died alone.

 The hotel was not held accountable for GRA’s death after an investigation by the HSA, which is the Health and Safety Authority, even though the only panic button was at reception. So if you were not at the front desk, there was no way of requesting help, which put employees at risk. And there are many stories where staff in hotels have been attacked, especially at night.

 Clina and Epha, Gro’s sisters, decided after her death to register a star in her name as a constant reminder of the light she brought into people’s lives. Every time we see a bright star, it’s GRA. We can talk to her in the sky. It feels like she’s with us. She’s always around us. Rest in peace, Gro. I know this was a short video, but it doesn’t make G’s case any less important.

 Thank you all as always, and see you soon in the next one. I mean, GR didn’t die instantly. Gro bled to death. I mean, he had immobilized her after the first shot. He could have taken his €3,000 and left. It all becomes about the perpetrator’s rights, his rehabilitation, and at nowhere does it matter that a young woman is dead.

We don’t know how he will be when when he’s officially released. Now, I know he’d be on license, but uh again, how strict is that license? I don’t know. >> As far as we are aware, he has never expressed any remorse. It’s hard to accept that they’re letting someone out who’s not remorseful. It kills me. He’s younger than I am.

 He will get married, have children. If he returns to Portugal, he won’t even be on license. To me, that isn’t a life sentence.