FORTY GARDAÍ are investigating the murder of a man in Killorglin, Co Kerry, who was initially thought to have died of smoke inhalation in a house fire.
James Cahillane (58) is now believed to have been assaulted in his own home, gardaí said at a press conference yesterday.
A postmortem revealed Mr Cahillane, whose body was found by firefighters early on Thursday, had suffered severe injuries which were followed by a fire, senior gardaí said.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Anne Bolster, who alerted gardaí to the suspicious nature of the death on Friday after a postmortem in Kerry General Hospital, was due to attend a further case conference with senior detectives in Killorglin Garda station yesterday.
House-to-house inquiries in the Ardraw area between Killorglin and Beaufort are being conducted and a number of areas are being searched for possible weapons.
Tests are under way to determine exactly how the fire started and to confirm whether it was malicious, as suspected.
Closed circuit television from the town is being examined in the case. Gardaí have not ruled out burglary and the possibility that Mr Cahillane may have been attacked by burglars. They are keeping “a very open mind”.
A number of people who socialised with Mr Cahillane on Wednesday have come forward, while the taxi driver who brought him home had come forward immediately, Garda Supt John Gilligan said. He was accompanied at the press conference by Garda Chief Supt Pat Sullivan, Garda Insp Donal Ashe, acting superintendent in Killorglin, and Garda Det Insp Dan Keane.
Insp Ashe appealed for anyone who had “any interaction at all” with Mr Cahillane between 6pm on Wednesday and 11pm, when he took a taxi from Clifford’s Tavern in the square area alongside the Garda station, to telephone the special investigation number at 066-9790500.
As well as grocery shopping, he had withdrawn cash from an ATM and during the evening he visited Sheehan’s and Clifford’s public houses in the town.
The taxi had gone out the Beaufort-Kilgobnet road and taken Mr Cahillane to his home, where he lived alone, about 5km from Killorglin. The driver delivered him to his bungalow home at Ardraw.
“Our initial focus was this was a terrible tragedy as the result of a house fire in a rural part of Ireland,” Supt Gilligan said, before stating this was now “a murder investigation”.
Mr Cahillane, a father of two grown-up children, finished work at the financial services centre, Fexco in Killorglin, where he worked as an electrician, at 5.30pm, and went into the central square to socialise and do some shopping. He watched the Chelsea-Barcelona soccer match and took a taxi home at 11.50pm.
At 2.10am last Thursday a neighbour had heard a loud bang and arrived to find Mr Cahillane’s house “totally engulfed in fire”, Supt Gilligan said.
There was no suggestion of any kind of altercation in the pub, Supt Gilligan added. “He was a quiet, inoffensive, hard-working man who lived a quiet life.”