At about 8.15 p.m. on Friday, February 11th, last year, a Carlow woman left work in the town and walked to the nearby car-park where she had left her car. Larry Murphy was waiting. He had spotted her earlier in the town and began stalking her, waiting for an opportunity to attack. When he did, he struck her face so hard that her nose was fractured. She was flung backwards. He followed her into the car and forced her down on to the floor on the front passenger side, took her keys and sat into the driver's seat.
He drove her across the carpark to the parking bay where his own Fiat Punto was hidden out of sight from passers by.
She was still stunned from the blow to her head. He held her down and made her take off her clothes, dragging off her boots first to ensure she would be unable to run without him catching her. He tied her hands using her bra, then he dragged her out of her car and bundled her into the boot of his car.
With the car stereo blaring, Murphy then drove nine miles to Beaconstown, near Maganey, just north of Carlow, where he pulled into a dirt track leading to farmland. He raped his victim there. During the ordeal, Murphy tied a cord headband in the Carlow GAA colours around the woman's face as a gag. She was forced back into the boot of the car and Murphy drove 14 miles east, crossing the N9 route from Carlow to Naas at Castledermot and driving up into the Wicklow mountains to Kilranelagh, close to where he lived outside Baltinglass.
He drove into the forest at about 10.15 p.m. and turned his car around in a lane hidden from a nearby bed-and-breakfast. There, he raped the woman twice and started to strangle her. He placed a plastic shopping bag over her head. As she struggled, he forced the bag into her mouth in an apparent attempt to gag or suffocate her.
From somewhere the woman appears to have gained strength at this point and she began kicking at him and trying to free her self. Despite his much greater strength, she freed her hands and was able to pull the bag off her head. She tried to haul herself out of the boot of the car and then kicked out at him as he repeatedly slammed the boot lid on her legs. At this point Murphy faltered as he saw the lights of an approaching car.
Ken Jones and Trevor Moody were out hunting in the forest. They were dressed in boots and combat jackets and carried two rifles with telescopic sights and a powerful lamp - some hunters shine powerful lamps causing their quarry to freeze and making them easier targets.
On this night, Mr Jones and Mr Moody had decided to drive up into the woods above Baltin glass on the slopes of Keadeen Mountain. The hunters, who know the rugged mountain terrain intimately, are "the best policemen in the Wicklow mountains," one senior Garda officer would say later.
"They drive up into the hills and they have their lamps and they watch every car or van moving for miles. They watch until everything is put to bed. When there is no movement they go out with the lamps."
Mr Jones and Mr Moody came across a car, with its sidelights on, parked in their path in a narrow lane between the pine forest on one side and a line of ash trees on the other. They saw a movement at the back of the car.
At first they were not sure what was happening. It was not unusual for courting couples to use the spot. However, they quickly realised they were looking at a man grappling with a pair of human legs kicking out from the boot of his car.
When Murphy saw them he stopped struggling with his victim, jumped back into his car, revved his engine and drove by them, his car scraping past theirs, as he headed towards the main road to Baltinglass.
Mr Jones recognised the car and the driver. It was, he told his friend, one of the Murphys from the nearby village of Stratford.
Mr Jones and Mr Moody then saw a naked woman in a state of panic running from the lane into the rusted barbed wire strung between the ash trees. She was clearly injured and in a desperate state.
As the two men helped untangle her from the fence, the wo man's panic initially increased but they were able to convince her she was saved. They gave her a jacket and drove her to Baltinglass Garda station.
The three gardai on duty, Pe ter Cassin, Seamus Murphy and Liam Horgan, called medical help and made her comfortable before she was taken to Carlow hospital. Mr Jones told gardai he had recognised the man they had seen. During the night gardai began to form a ring of road checks around the area and made discreet inquiries about Murphy's whereabouts.
Later on, after the woman had recovered physically, she indicated she would like to meet the two men whose intervention saved her and gardai arranged for the reunion at Baltinglass station. She and Mr Jones threw their arms around each other and both were in tears.