Double murderer Ruth Lawrence given 2 life terms as victims’ families deliver emotional ‘sick to our stomach’ statements

Extending his condolences to the O’Connor and Keegan families, Mr Justice Hunt said “entirely needless activities or whatever went on” in no way deserved the violent end the men met, nor “the entirely callous and disrespectful way” their bodies were treated.

The trial heard that O’Connor sold drugs to Van der Westhuizen, who owed the deceased man in the region of €70,000.

Handing down the concurrent life sentences for murder, Mr Justice Tony Hunt noted that the families had given a very articulate picture of the trauma caused
DOUBLE murderer Ruth Lawrence was handed two separate life sentences for shooting a drug dealer and working in tandem with her boyfriend to murder him and another man.

Victims Eoin O’Connor and Anthony Keegan were found bound and buried in a shallow grave on a Midlands lake island 11 years ago.

Lawrence, who a court heard found it funny that she murdered a man who said he would die for his friend, was asked in an impact statement by one victim’s family whether she is “laughing now”.

Karen Roche told the Central Criminal Court her partner Eoin O’Connor died after seeing his best friend shot dead in front of him.

She said: “I think of the panic he must have felt when he knew he was going to be next.

“I know he struggled and fought and tried his best to live, but they wouldn’t let him.”

Anthony Keegan’s sister Margaret delivered a second statement on behalf of herself and her family.

Ms Keegan said: “We wondered was he shot first, did he die instantly, did he feel fear? We could not make sense of the efforts that were put into the disposal of his body — why his shoes and socks were taken off, and why coal bags were used.

“Why wasn’t it enough to have ended his life but to have us searching for his body for weeks?”

She added: “I heard in evidence that Ruth laughed about my loyal brother dying for his friend. To think that someone would find that funny is so beyond belief.

“As a woman and a mother to think another woman would laugh at the violent death of someone’s loved one makes us sick to our stomach. I wonder does she still find it funny.

“I wonder is she laughing now as she hears the impact of what she did to my family.”

EMOTIONAL STATEMENTS

The testimonies were heard as part of four emotional victim impact statements, before Lawrence was sentenced to two mandatory terms of life imprisonment for murdering the two men.

The sentences were backdated to October 4, 2022, when she first went into custody.

On November 12 last, a Central Criminal Court jury found Lawrence shot and worked “as a unit” with her boyfriend, South African national Neville van der Westhuizen, to murder drug dealer Eoin O’Connor, 32, after they had lured him to their home.

The panel also accepted that Anthony Keegan, 33, was shot by Van der Westhuizen, that he and Lawrence acted as a team in that murder, and that they were equally liable for the outcome.

TRAUMA CAUSED

Lawrence, who is originally from Clontarf in Dublin but with an address at Ross, Mountnugent, Co Meath, had pleaded not guilty to murdering the men at an unknown location on a date between April 22, 2014, and May 26, 2014.

Handing down the concurrent life sentences for murder, Mr Justice Tony Hunt noted that the families had today given a very articulate picture of the trauma caused to a large number of people over a long period of time.

Extending his condolences to the O’Connor and Keegan families, Mr Justice Hunt said “entirely needless activities or whatever went on” in no way deserved the violent end the men met, nor “the entirely callous and disrespectful way” their bodies were treated.

The trial heard that O’Connor sold drugs to Van der Westhuizen, who owed the deceased man in the region of €70,000.