Lying Eyes: The Hitman Plot
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Fresh food, happy dogs. It's September 26th, 2006. Brothers Robert and Niall Howard are at home in the house they share with friends on the outskirts of Ennis, County Clare. It's been a long day for the brothers, who started their day with the discovery that two computers had been burgled from the office of their family business. At 10.30pm, Robert's mobile phone rings. On the other end is a man with an accent Robert can't identify. He's saying he'd heard Robert was looking for some computers. Thinking this is a tip-off of some sort, Robert agrees. The anonymous man tells him, I'll be at your house in five minutes. Robert doubts the caller is telling the truth. He never even asked for his address. Robert tells his brother Niall about the call.
A few minutes later, a knock at the door startles them. While Niall waits out of sight, Robert opens the door. A man is standing on the front step in a white tracksuit jacket. He wears a navy baseball cap emblazoned with US Open 2000. He's in his late 40s or early 50s. He's six feet tall, maybe a little shorter. He has sallow skin and wears glasses. There's a car in the driveway with a woman in the passenger seat. The man in the hat introduces himself as Tony Luciano and hands over one of the laptops stolen earlier that day. Robert takes it inside and tells Niall to call the Gardaí. Back at the front door, the man says something that makes this about much more than a stolen computer. Something that would start a bizarre, barely believable journey.
The man says he has been hired to kill Robert, Niall, and their father, PJ. He has been promised €130,000 to kill all three, he says. But if they can pay him €100,000, he'll spare their lives.
Thank you.
When someone is killed in Ireland, the Gardaí call in a specialist unit of forensic crime scene examiners from the Technical Bureau. This is Ireland's real-life version of CSI, but it's nothing like the movies or TV shows. For 25 years, I was one of the detectives on that team. My name is John Sweetman. My job as a guarded detective in the Technical Bureau was to read the evidence that could not speak for itself. I learned to see what others might miss. Fingerprints smudged on a handle of a door. Weapons disguised in everyday objects. Handwritten notes that revealed more than the writer ever intended. The smallest traces often unraveled the big story. And now I'm here to tell you those stories. In this podcast from Go Loud, I take you inside some of Ireland's most haunting investigations.
This is Lines of Inquiry, a Go Loud original podcast that follows the evidence step by step and tries to uncover the real story behind the headlines. This week, we revisit a case that proves that sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction. Deception and double-crossing, an international hitman, a blonde bombshell and the FBI in a murderous plot so wild it belongs in a Hollywood movie.
What happened the night the Howard offices were burgled and who showed up at the brothers' home?
On the morning of Monday, September 26th, 2006, Gardaí in Ennis, County Clare, received a relatively routine call. A local business had been burgled overnight. The open space car park that stretched across the Westgate Business Park was mostly empty when Gardaí arrived at the Downs and Howard property office.
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