On 12 April 1996, Detective Sergeant Fergus O’Brien and Detective Joe Collins had a discussion with Catherine in her sitting room. These visits were openly accepted and did not seem to cause her unease. She had intimated previously that they were the only two Gardaí she had confidence in.
During the course of the conversation, Catherine left the room, leaving her diary lying open on a table. The opened page contained a phone number and beside it the name ‘Heapes’. The detectives both took down the number and name to have them checked. The name ‘Heapes’ was known to Fergus O’Brien, though in what context he wasn’t sure at that stage.
On 18 May 1996, the pub and residence was thoroughly and meticulously searched. Catherine was present throughout and didn’t raise any objections. Assorted papers and documents were seized, including the diary. O’Brien and Collins noted the entries that they had seen in it on 12 April were now scribbled out.
Also found in the search were two pieces of paper, one with a phone number and the other a car number. The phone number, found in Catherine’s bedroom, was evidently a Dublin number with a missing digit. It suggested that the number had been written prior to April 1994, when Dublin phone numbers increased to seven digits. Enquiries at Telecom Éireann indicated that the number was allocated to John Jones, and the missing digit was supplied.
John Jones was born on 12 November 1944 and was married with two children. During the years 1984 to 1988, he and Dessie Ellis ran the TV sales and repair shop, trading as Channel Vision, which doubled as the Sinn Féin advice centre which had previously been frequented by Catherine.
Jones had fallen foul of the law on one occasion in 1988, when he was given a three-year suspended sentence for receiving a stolen car. He was also ordered to pay £3,000 to the insurance company and £500 to the rightful owner of the car.
The phone number written in Catherine’s diary was traced to William Adams, who had at one time employed Gerry Heapes. Heapes could best be described as someone with an interesting past. Born on 28 May 1950 in Dublin, and married with five children, his previous employments included work as a porter at Jervis Street Hospital and as a bouncer at various nightclubs in Dublin. He was involved with Sinn Féin/the Provisional IRA in the 1970s.
On 26 November 1977, he was caught red-handed by the Gardaí with eight others in an armed robbery at Leydon’s Cash & Carry in Fairview, Dublin. At the Special Criminal Court, he was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. He was released in April 1985 and became a frequent visitor at the Sinn Féin advice centre. It was there that he first met Catherine Nevin; he was later invited to the official opening of Jack White’s Inn.
The car registration number led to William McClean, mentioned earlier as Catherine’s lover. He has convictions recorded against him in the Republic and also Northern Ireland. On 26 July 1973 at Clogher Magistrates Court, he was found guilty of theft by deception and sentenced to three months in prison. On 2 October 1973, at Portadown Court, he was convicted of criminal deception and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, and on 15 April 1988 he was bound by Dublin District Court to keep the peace for six months for false pretences.
Catherine had dangerously sought the confidence and silence of not one but three individuals, all of whom had previous criminal convictions. It was perhaps because of the seedy pasts of Jones, Heapes and McClean that Catherine set out to gain their support for plans she had been devising over a number of years. They were not to suspect the evil propositions she would one day put to them individually.