All language subtitles for Pushed.to.Death.S01E10.Death.on.the.Emerald.Isle.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

A fatal fall
at a newlyweds home in Ireland.

A young woman's life cut
short just six months

after getting married.

She was a beautiful,
caring person.

And what happened was
absolutely shocking.

Was it simply
a tragic accident?

They find Mary
at the foot of the stairs.

She's covered
with a heavy duvet

and she's bleeding from
her nose and mouth.

Or murder?

Within minutes
of actually seeing Mary's body,

I knew there was
something wrong here.

I said, "you
may sharpen your pencil.

We have a murder
investigation."

Mary
Gough was born

on the 22nd of December, 1973,
in Drogheda in County Louth.

She was born to a large
Catholic family

of five children.

Her parents were
Marie and James,

and Mary was the only
daughter of the family,

and she was described
as laid back, independent,

and really friendly, and the
heart and soul of the family.

When Mary
was growing up,

Pat Marry was a local police
officer who would later get

to know Mary's family well.

Mary's family
were all very close.

Her father had died
when she was very young,

and I guess the fact that
she lost her dad brought

the family even closer.

She shone as a person who had a
degree of love and compassion,

was just a downright
lovely person.

And her mother,
Marie, would say

that she was her best friend.

She went to the local
secondary school,

and she had the aspirations
of all young women of her age.

She wanted to meet someone,
get married, have children,

raise a family, do the things
that most normal people

would like to do.

In her
late teens, Mary

met a man who she wanted
to spend the rest of her

life with.

In the early 1990s,
when Mary left school,

she got a job in a pub
called the Huntsman,

and it was there that she met
a man called Colin Whelan.

Colin was a guy from
a similar area to Mary,

and he was slightly
older than her.

She was 19 years
old at the time,

and it became very apparent
early on that the two of them

hit it off and they
were quite close.

He was very amenable
to Mary's friends,

and he was a good-looking guy.

He was over 6-foot.

He was a good catch, let's say.

Colin was an impressive
individual.

He went to Dundalk
Institute of Technology,

and there he acquired
a qualification

in computer science.

And after that,
he acquired a job

in Irish Permanent
Building Society

to do programming for them.

Mary's career at a
law firm was also taking off

and the future looked
bright for Colin and Mary.

But in the mid 1990s,
their relationship

hit a sudden rough patch.

In 1995, Colin broke up
for a period of time with Mary.

She was heartbroken
and confided in her mother

and she really was devastated.

And Colin at that stage said
he wanted to break it off.

He didn't want
to see her again.

But as things progressed,
they got back together again

and it appeared to everybody
and Mary's family and

Colin's family that
the relationship was

going in the right direction.

And he proposed in 1998
for them to get married.

to do it, Mary, and then
we'll get you sorted.

On the 9th
of September in 2000,

Mary and Colin were married.

On the day, Mary
was quite nervous,

but she was comforted
by her older brother,

who walked her down the aisle.

The newlyweds quickly
settled into married life.

They moved into an area
called Balbriggan.

It's 20 miles north of Dublin.

And there, they renovated
a new house together.

Newlyweds
Mary and Colin

had a lot to look forward to as
they embarked on their new

life together.

But just six months
after their wedding,

at 12:16 AM on March
1, 2001, an emergency

call was made by Colin.

20 minutes
later, the paramedics

and the fire brigade arrived.

They find Mary
at the foot of the stairs.

She's covered
with a heavy duvet

and she's bleeding from
her nose and mouth.

Colin Whelan was stood over
his wife's body in a daze.

He was asking paramedics,
"is Mary dead or alive?"

As first
responders tended to Mary,

they asked Colin
what had happened.

Colin
claimed that Mary's sleeve

from her dressing
gown must have

got caught on the banister, and
that's what caused her to fall,

because there was a tear
on the sleeve area.

The paramedics found
Mary in cardiac arrest.

They began CPR on her
in the ambulance

as they rushed her towards
Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.

Colin
followed the ambulance.

And after Mary's family were
informed of her accident,

they rushed to the hospital
to be with their daughter.

But when they arrived
at the hospital,

they were told that the doctors
could do nothing more

and Mary was pronounced dead.

As Colin
and Mary's family processed

the devastating news of
27-year-old Mary Gough's tragic

fatal fall, the police, known
in Ireland as the "Garda,"

were notified of her passing.

At the time, Pat Marry
was a Detective Sergeant

in nearby Balbriggan.

Following standard
procedure for all

of a sudden deaths
in Ireland, he

was instructed to investigate
how Mary had died.

At this
stage, Colin Whelan

had made it known that
it was only himself and

his wife that
were in the house,

and she fell down the stairs.

Colin was then
interviewed as a witness

to explain exactly
what had happened.

Colin relayed
to the Garda in a statement

that he was in,
watching the TV.

His wife had gone
up to have a shower.

After a period of time, he
heard thump, thump, thump.

And he opened
the sitting room door and

there on the bottom
of the stairs was Mary

and she was unresponsive.

Colin's
witness statement

suggested Mary's
death was the result

of a tragic accidental fall.

But after speaking to staff
at the hospital where

Mary was pronounced
dead, officers

had more questions for Colin.

At Beaumont Hospital,

Nurse Galvin went over
to sympathize with Colin

and she noticed his
shirt opened and

she could see scratch marks.

And Superintendent
Thomas Gallagher,

a very experienced
detective, spoke with Colin

and he was asked
what were they.

And he tried to brush
them away and he said,

"oh, when she
flailed out of me,

she must have scratched me."

But that's the first
time he ever

said that, because that was
never an issue on the 999 call

he had made.

He had told her that
she wasn't breathing,

she was unresponsive.

But he changed his story when
he saw the scratch marks.

As a result
of the unusual marks on Colin,

a postmortem was ordered
to verify Mary's cause of death

and their home
was cordoned off.

Given what Nurse
Galvin had seen

and what Tom Gallagher,
the Superintendent,

had witnessed
the scratches on him,

he thought it best that
the house should be preserved

on the basis that if Colin
Sweeney's story was not true,

at least they were able
to have their house examined.

After Mary Gough's
fatal fall down the stairs

at the home she shared
with husband Colin Whelan,

police continued to investigate
whether her death

was an accident
as Colin had claimed.

As part of procedure,
they carried out

a background check on Colin.

He was a normal guy.

A good job, well
thought of in work.

And there was nothing in
Colin's past that anyone should

be concerned about in his
relationship with Mary

as far as her family were
concerned and his family.

They had a perfect marriage.

They were very happy together.

The day
after Mary died,

a state pathologist carried out
the postmortem on Mary's body.

I'm Marie Cassidy,

and I was a forensic
pathologist

on call when Mary Gough died.

I was brought in because
if there was something

unusual about her death,
the state pathology department

would be asked to investigate.

Usually in the first instance
when I hear about a death,

there's very little
information available.

And I don't seek
information because I

would rather go
in and make up my own mind

about what I think happened.

Within minutes of actually
seeing Mary's body,

I knew there was
something far wrong here.

This wasn't
an accidental death.

This wasn't a death following
a simple fall down the stairs.

I didn't see the normal
bumps and scrapes

on the arms and the legs
I would have

expected in the circumstances.

What I did notice was that
Mary's face was discolored.

Normally, after death,
the face is rather pale.

Mary's face was not pale.

Mary's face was
a blue purple color.

When I looked
at the neck, I could

see that there was a distinct
line from the neck down.

The skin was the pale color I
would normally have expected.

Mid-deck upwards, there was
this purple blue discoloration

of the skin, and that was
immediately concerning.

She had small
pinpoint hemorrhages.

We call these
particular hemorrhages,

and I noticed them
in and around the eyes.

I then proceeded to do
a neck dissection.

This is a very
detailed examination,

and I examined the neck
layer by layer.

And then I get
to the skeleton of the neck.

And that's your Adam's
apple, the larynx.

But it was the bone above
that, the hyoid bone

I found was broken.

Injuries to the neck
structures are not

common in accidental
falls downstairs

because you've got
a tumbling motion,

and therefore the neck is
what we call a protected area.

It does happen.

But if you've only got
a neck injury in isolation,

it doesn't quite
make sense about this

being a fall downstairs.

Once I found the damage
to the hyoid bone

and taking that with the marker
across the neck, discoloration

of the face, the small
pinpoint hemorrhages in and

around the eyes,
this then confirmed

my suspicion that Mary's
neck had been compressed.

And at that stage, I was quite
firm in that this was a case

of ligature strangulation.

And Mary had been murdered.

It was
a shocking discovery

that dramatically changed the
course of their investigation.

Marie Cassidy
came into the office to me,

and she says "this
girl was murdered.

It's not a tragic
fall down the stairs."

And I was a little bit
taken aback because I

wasn't expecting that.

And she said she's been
asphyxiated by strangulation

by way of ligature.

I said to her, how sure
are you about this.

And probably a bit cheeky
of me asking like, because I

wasn't expecting that.

She says, I'm 110% sure.

Marie Cassidy was quite
solid in her findings.

I got on to my superintendent
and my very words to him were,

I said, "you may
sharpen your pencil.

We have a murder
investigation."

Strangulation is actually a
very personal method of murder.

And that's because it
often involves

looking someone directly
in the face as you kill them.

And on top of that,
it actually takes

quite a long time for someone
to pass away from asphyxiation.

Most commonly then you
see asphyxiation murders

in relation to either anger
and rage-based murders,

or sexually-motivated murders.

The Gough
family had to be

told that it was a murder.

We could see that there
were a very close family

and that they were very, very
close to Colin Whelan and

his family.

The next day, Mary's brother
came down to the station

with his partner
and we told him, look,

we're treating
this as a murder.

Mary was murdered.

She was strangled, and it's
now a murder investigation.

Colin was the only
person in the house

at the time with Mary, so it
leaves a finger of suspicion

on Colin.

They could not believe
what we were saying.

We asked them not to engage
with Colin Whelan,

and not to do anything foolish.

Until Colin was made
a suspect in Mary's death,

her family had seen
nothing to suggest

that he was capable of
committing such a horrific act.

From an
outsider's perspective, looking

at Colin and Mary's
relationship,

there might not be any
immediate red flags or

concerns about his
behavior or the state

of their relationship,
or his likelihood to go

on to harm her, to kill her.

But that doesn't mean
that there's not stuff

going on behind the scenes.

There might still have been
escalations of behavior

that the general public
are just not aware of.

Following
the pathologist's findings,

investigators asked
Colin about his movements

on the day of Mary's death.

He told them that it was
a normal working day,

except that he went to a luxury
department store around midday.

Colin, during
lunch hour at work,

had purchased a bronze
ornament for his wife Mary, and

the lady who served
him remembered him

because of him saying
he loved his wife

and he wanted to surprise
her and all that, you know.

And she thought
that was very nice.

Colin was also
asked about his whereabouts

after work.

He said, "look,
I came home from work."

He changed and went out
again to go to the gym.

He was there for an hour,
returned home again.

Himself and Mary were there.

They had some dinner.

Officers confirmed
Colin's claims by checking

his home security alarm logs.

And with a clean
criminal record,

there was nothing to suggest
any suspicious behavior

by Colin in the lead
up to Mary's death.

Someone escalating
from having

no criminal behavior in their
past, suddenly all the way

up to murder can happen.

It really depends on the motive
behind the murder.

Often, though, what you see
in cases of domestic homicide

like this appears
to be is there

is normally a pattern
of escalation of behaviors

before the moment of murder.

But that doesn't
necessarily mean

that anyone's been
apprehended or

any criminal charges
have been brought

for those prior behaviors.

And a lot of the time, things
that we see as red flags or

issues or concerns
from someone are

a lot easier to see
in retrospect

than they are in the moment.

Within
days of Mary's death,

her funeral service took place.

All the Gardas that were
involved in the investigation

attended to show
their support for the family,

and also to see the reaction
of Colin Whelan and his family.

Colin was acting
as a cold individual.

He was a big man.

He was 6-foot 5".

He was a well-built
man, but he was cold.

He had no emotion in his face.

He had no tears in his eyes.

He didn't put his
hands up to his face.

He didn't show any emotion that
he was going to bury his wife.

None whatsoever.

Colin appearing
very emotionally

withdrawn at the funeral
isn't inherently a red flag.

Everyone responds to trauma
and loss and grief

in very different ways.

Some people withdraw
into themselves, and

so whilst it might not look how
everyone would expect someone

to present at a funeral.

It doesn't necessarily
indicate anything

sinister in and of itself.

The investigation into Colin
Whelan was well underway,

but the police at this point
were yet to establish a motive.

Every murder
has a motive, and

you have to find that motive.

Because if you find the motive,
it will lead you to the killer.

Was Colin having an affair?

Was he trying to get
rid of his wife?

Was there financial
difficulties?

That's what we
needed to determine.

Investigators
decided to search for clues

on Colin's computers.

It was
decided that it

would be prudent to seize
his computers and view them,

to see if there was anything
on it of evidential value.

His own personal computer
we took from his house.

There was nothing on it.

It appeared to have
been wiped, and

there was nothing
of evidential value

accruing from that computer.

But when investigators turned
to Colin's work computers,

they found he didn't realize
that his searches had been

saved to an external server.

They had what they
called a double proxy server.

I never heard of that before.

I didn't even know what it was.

And they said, we
have a server that

captures absolutely everything
that any of our employees

do on a daily basis.

So I said, "you're telling
me anything that he looked

up or done would be saved?"

"Yes."

So I said, "happy days."

But getting
to Colin's specific computer

activity meant finding a way to
navigate through months of data

covering 60 other employees.

They decided that they would
devise a program and key it

into the logs
and look for key words

like murder or strangulation
or that type of thing.

And that's exactly
what they did.

What the police
found was chilling.

Colin Whelan had been searching
terms like asphyxiation,

how to block a windpipe,
and how long does

it take to die from choking.

What
was sickening to me

is that he was looking up
asphyxiation and strangulation

before he got married.

So he had this
intention, obviously,

before he got
married and played

out the six months of marriage
like the perfect husband

and then killed her.

It brought it home to me.

There was no doubt
in my mind at that stage

that Colin Whelan had
strangled his wife,

and he was the murderer,
and that he

had researched how to do it
and to make it look like a fall

down the stairs.

It was shocking, really.

In premeditated murders, it
is fairly common for someone

to do research before
committing the act,

especially if they are
planning to try and get away

with it because they're
often looking

at different potential murder
methods, different ways

to maybe stage a scene or to
make it look like an accident.

And all of that's
very intentional

for them trying
to be organized,

trying to get away with it.

Police
also discovered

that Colin took an unhealthy
interest in serial killers.

What was hugely
relevant was his research

into Henry Louis Wallace,
because the nine women he

killed and eventually
was caught for,

he had strangled them
but never left a ligature mark.

Copycat murders
are relatively rare,

but they are well-documented
in criminology.

They are understood
as a phenomenon.

What you often see
in copycat killers

is that they are replicating
the behavior of that offender,

perhaps because they share
an ideology with them,

or perhaps actually
because they

have a sense of grandiosity
and they think they can

do the same act, but better.

So you have to wonder,
in the case of Colin,

whether he looked at this case,
he saw the method by which

these murders had
occurred, and he

tried to replicate
them thinking

that he could do it better.

Our access to his computer
spelt out to us this

cold-blooded
and methodical individual

who used the internet
to follow his plan.

But we still had
not established

at that stage what the motive
was for killing his wife.

After
investigators established

that Mary Gough died from
ligature strangulation,

her husband Colin, who
had claimed she fell down

the stairs, became the prime
suspect as detectives

continued to search
for a motive.

Colin has said
it was only him

and her in the house
at the time,

and Colin had given up
his keys to the house.

So we searched his house.

As a forensic
team scoured

Colin and Mary's
marital home for clues,

they came across vital evidence
in the couple's bedroom.

The blood
staining on the wall

between the en suite
and the main door

was extremely evident.

When you're being
strangled, blood

vessels break
in your nose and they

emit blood in a mist format.

And they found that
pattern on the wallpaper.

So they knew something had
happened in the bedroom

and it was violent.

Their discovery
contradicted Colin's claim

that Mary had
died after falling

down the stairs on her own.

This is a case
of primary scene staging.

So this is where someone
has staged the crime scene

specifically with the intention
of misleading the police

investigation, because Colin
has tried to set this

up to look like an accident.

But now the evidence is
showing that actually

there was some sort
of confrontation

at the top of the stairs.

The blood spatter
analysis is not aligning

with Colin's tale of events.

Investigators
also discovered

a vital clue in the duvet
Mary was wrapped

in when emergency services
first arrived on the scene

following Colin's call.

Wrapped up in the duvet
was a yellow towel

and the yellow towel had
blood staining on it, which

turned out to be Mary's blood.

And it was a light
bulb moment because it

sparked a thought of me
about Henry Louis Wallace.

And at every scene
of his murders,

there was a towel involved.

And the fact that he had
looked up and researched him,

I believe this towel
was involved in some way

in the murder of Mary Gough.

Marie Cassidy, the
state pathologist who had first

found evidence
of ligature strangulation,

also revisited the scene
to look for more clues.

Where's the ligature?

What had been tied
around Mary's neck?

When I went up the stairs,
we had a look around,

and in the bedroom there was
nothing very much lying about.

But there was a dressing
gown hanging behind the door.

The belt was in place.

It was through
the loops, but it

looked as if it had been
stretched or something,

and there was some
staining on it.

And I immediately brought
it to their attention.

And I said, well, that could
have been used to strangle her.

The belt was sent
to the forensic science

laboratory for testing.

They found Mary's
blood on the belt.

Given that the ligature
was found in the bedroom

and Mary was found
at the bottom of the stairs,

I wondered whether or not she
had been strangled upstairs

and then manhandled downstairs.

She'd been literally
dragged down

to the bottom of the stairs
and then left in a heap.

It was
further evidence

that Mary had been
murdered, most likely

by her husband, Colin Whelan.

Friends and family
were in shock

that Colin was in the frame
for Mary's murder,

but Mary's mom Marie
said that, on reflection,

there had been a change
in her behavior

in the lead up to this.

And looking back
as well, Mary's family

said that on her wedding day
she just didn't look happy.

Her mother said
to me that she just felt

there was something not right.

There was something
amiss at the wedding.

She just couldn't
put her finger on it,

but Mary wasn't happy
and things weren't right.

When the couple came
back from their honeymoon,

her mom noticed that
Mary was just different.

She stopped getting
her nails done

and wearing certain
clothes because she said

that Colin didn't like it.

Her mother says she
didn't wear her perfume that

she loved, and she said, "oh,
Colin doesn't like that perfume

and I don't wear it anymore."

Mary also stopped
even inviting her mom around.

And before this, Marie had
practically lived in the house.

She had her own bedroom there.

Yet something changed.

And the week before she died,
Mary's mom said that she

was calling her every night.

It's as if she wanted
to tell her something.

All
of this strikes as someone

who's potentially
in a coercive,

controlling relationship
because now they're married.

Now he has an element
of not only legal but sort

of moral control over her.

Manipulators and controlling
individuals in relationships

do this on purpose.

They do this to isolate
their victim,

and that way they
have more control,

more say, over their life.

And so for someone who is
seeking that level of ownership

over another human
being, these are

very methodical
steps that occur

with that exact intention.

Investigators still
wanted to establish a motive,

so they turned
their attention back

to Colin's digital footprint.

Further searches of Collins
computer revealed that he had

actually set up a website
and was managing this website

called extramaritalaffairs.com
and he was

portraying himself
as single and actively

looking for a relationship.

Police then found
through this search

that Colin had met
a woman in Wales,

and they were having
an online affair.

Through
communication, through emails,

they had sent
a total of something

like 123 greeting cards
between each other.

She had nicknamed him "Fuzzy
Bear," and he nicknamed

her the "Little Welsh Rabbit."

She was wanting to come
over and meet him

because she had fallen
in love with him

and was in love with him as a
result of this cyber affair.

Colin going to the extent

to set up a whole
website just to enable

an extramarital
online affair really

goes to show the level
of secrecy that he's hiding.

The ability that he
clearly has to be

able to manipulate
those in his life

because he's presenting
as this loving,

doting husband externally.

But the reality of his behavior
is so far removed from that.

And I think this
is him actually

just testing the limits
of what he can get away with.

With the assistance
of local police,

detectives decided to visit
his online girlfriend in Wales.

The Welsh policeman said,
"I have Irish police here.

They want to speak to you and
they want to talk to you about

a guy called Colin Whelan."

"Oh, Colin.

Yeah, I haven't heard about
him in a couple of days.

I wonder, is he all right?"

We said, "he's fine.

His wife died."
"Oh, I know that.

His wife died.

He told me she was killed
in a car accident in 1997."

And I says, "no.

His wife died a week ago.

And Colin is the suspect
for murdering her."

And with that, she just
collapsed on the ground

like, you know.

Continuing their
search for digital evidence,

detectives found
another potential motive

for Colin to have killed Mary.

An insurance policy document
was found, and it showed that,

initially, he had taken
out a policy on himself and

Mary on the 15th of March,
2000, for the value

of 200,000 pounds.

But two months after
that, he upped the policy

to 400,000 pounds, which
was in excess of anything

that was reasonable.

The insurance policy
were taken out at a time

after they had been engaged
and before they got married.

And when you look
at his internet history,

going back before they married,
where he was looking up

asphyxiation and strangulation,
he obviously had it in his mind

at that stage he was
going to kill her

and he was going to cash in.

Also, the internet
history showed

he was looking at expensive
cars, holidays abroad.

He was looking at the high
life if he got this money.

So there is no
doubt in our mind

he wanted to kill his
wife for that money.

It was definitely the big
jigsaw piece that fitted in.

And to say, well, look,
this is the motive.

It was financial greed.

We had him bang to rights.

We were quite happy.

We had a very,
very strong case.

On April 10, 2001,
police drove to Colin's house.

In the presence
of his father,

I arrested him
on the suspicion of the murder

of his wife, Mary.

Colin
Whelan was taken

to Balbriggan Police
Station, where the next day

he was questioned about
the murder of his wife.

Colin didn't say anything.

He kept his mouth shut.

Now we asked him, "well, can
you explain how she ended

up being strangled to death?"

And he said, "I can't."

We asked him, "were
you ashamed that

you have killed your wife?"

Like, "have you
anything to say?"

And he broke down and he cried.

But he said, "no comment."

He was psychopathic.

That's the way I
would look at it.

He believed he was smarter
and better than us,

but we were putting questions
to him that were hard-hitting.

If he sat there and said
nothing, we couldn't care less.

We had the ace
card at that stage.

Despite Colin
invoking his right not

to comment, on April 11,
2001, police officially

charged Colin Whelan with
the murder of his wife,

but he would have to wait over
two years to appear in court.

A trial date was set
for October 13, 2003.

In Ireland, it's
common to grant

bail when there can be
long delays, sometimes up

to two years,
for murder trials,

provided the accused
isn't a flight risk

and won't interfere
with the prosecution.

Colin Whelan had
strict bail conditions.

He had to sign in every day
at Balbriggan Garda Station.

He had to live
with his family and

his family had to pay
a significant bail bond.

For two
years, Colin Whelan

abided by his strict
bail conditions,

but seven months before
he was due to stand trial,

everything changed.

In March 2003, his
family came to the station

to report Colin missing.

So we had to establish
where is he.

The family feared the worst
and his car was missing.

And we had to establish
where his car was

and we had to look for him.

Colin's disappearance
sparked a nationwide manhunt,

and on March 12, 2003,
police had a breakthrough

on the east coast of Ireland.

The police in Howth had been
patrolling Howth Head, which

is a known area for people
who commit suicide,

and they observed a car
there with keys in it.

And they thought
it very suspicious

and they contacted
us and I went

up immediately to Howth Head.

I looked at the car
and the window was

down on the passenger side.

You could clearly see
an empty bottle of gin.

With no
idea where Colin was,

police turned to his cell phone
activity to look for clues.

His last phone call,
we could establish,

was to the Samaritans,
which would be consistent

with someone, maybe
in a mental state of disorder,

that they would go and throw
themselves over the cliffs.

With
evidence that Colin

might have ended his life
at the well-known suicide spot,

detectives triggered
a search for his body.

We had a land and sea
search carried out

by the Irish Coast Guard
to see if his remains were

on the cliffs or in the sea.

Those searches were negative.

Detectives
soon suspected

that Colin had staged
the scene to suggest

that he was upset, drunk,
and had taken his own life.

I said
to myself, "this is typical

Colin Whelan controlling."

He's no more throwing
himself off the cliff

than the man in the moon.

And wherever he is, I don't
know but I'm going to find him.

I think that this
scene staging really

goes to actually show Colin's
narcissistic tendencies,

because this is someone
who thinks that he's

so intelligent, he
can outsmart the law,

he can think of every
preconceived idea and question

and answer them
by setting up this scene.

But actually, what
he's not accounted

for is that the perfect
nature of the scene

actually raises
questions in itself.

With Colin Whelan
now a fugitive on the run,

Irish detectives launched
an international manhunt.

When someone like
this has vanished,

you have to engage
Interpol and Europol

to circulate the details
of Colin Whelan

and what he's wanted for.

And you have to step back
and let that take its course.

It may take a short time, it
may take a very long time,

but you can do no
more than that.

One year
on, Colin Whelan

continued to evade justice.

But in July 2004, around 16
months after he disappeared,

investigators
received a tip off.

This was an unusual
turn of events.

Colin had been
spotted over 1,000 miles away

in the glamorous vacation town
of Portals Nous on the Spanish

island of Mallorca.

He was working in a bar.

The bar that he
was working in was

for customers who had bought
yachts of 1+ million pounds.

So there wasn't going
to be too many people

from Balbriggan down
wandering around there

parking their yacht like so.

He felt relatively
safe working there.

But Colin's identity
was not as well protected

as he thought it was.

A lady,
a holidaymaker just

happened to walk
into the bar, and

she engaged with Colin Whelan
while she was in the pub

and he told her his
name was Cian Sweeney.

And he gave her his
name and wrote it down,

signed it on the back
of a business card for the pub

and said you'll get me here.

When she returns
to Ireland, the Gough family

put in the papers the story
about Colin Whelan

that he's missing for so long,
had anybody seen him.

And a picture of him.

And she saw it,
and she says, "Jesus,

that's Cian Sweeney, that's
the guy I was talking to.

That's him."

And she contacted
the station and he

was put in contact with her.

She says that's the card he
gave me, and he signed it.

I took a statement off her.

I went back and compared it
with Colin Whelan's signature

on the statement he made
and the writing to me,

and anyone who looked
it, was the same.

So I said, this is our man
and we needed to get him.

16 months after
Colin Whelan went on the run

from Irish police
wanted for the murder

of his wife Mary Gough,
after first claiming

that she had a fatal
fall down the stairs,

he had finally been located.

And Spanish police were
poised to arrest him on behalf

of the Irish authorities.

On July the 10th
in 2004, at 10:30 PM,

the Spanish civil
guard raided the bar

where Colin was working.

He was arrested
on the warrant

and he said, "you
have the wrong guy.

My name is Cian Sweeney.

You have the wrong guy."

And they took him into custody
and took his fingerprints.

And they said, "no,
you're Colin Whelan,

your fingerprints match."

And he just put his
hands up and he says,

"right, I'm Colin Whelan."

News of Colin's
high-profile arrest

spread quickly to Mary's
family back home in Ireland.

When Mary's family
were told, they

were shocked but so relieved.

They broke down
in tears on the phone.

Colin Whelan was
finally being brought

back from Spain to face justice
for what he did to Mary.

Detective Pat Marry
traveled to Spain to bring

Colin Whelan back to Ireland.

I flew out
to Madrid to bring him back.

I went down
to the cell area and

about halfway down I
looked into the right

and there was Colin,
standing there on his own,

and he had grown
a beard at this stage.

Now, I looked at him
and he looked at me.

Our glances together
spelled it out.

He knew he was caught
and I knew I caught him.

He was handcuffed and put
on the plane and I

was chatting
to him, and he says,

"you know, you're very lucky."

And I says, "why?"

He said, "another week
I was gone to Singapore

and you would never get me."

Whelan saying
to the detective,

you know, one more week
and I'd have been in Singapore.

I think it kind of shows
that he's seeing

this as a bit of a game.

It's almost like he's
trying to flex, you know,

that this was
a master plan, and

he would have gotten away
with it if it wasn't for you

and those meddling kids.

You know, it's
a bit gamified, and

it's clearly someone not taking
the severity of their actions

seriously, and certainly
not showing any remorse

for the death of Mary.

On April
11, 2005, four years

after Mary Gough's
murder, Colin

stood trial at Dublin's
Central Criminal Court

in one of the most
publicized trials

in Irish criminal history.

At the beginning
of that trial,

and before any
jury were called,

he was arraigned by the court
clerk, who read out the charge.

He was asked, "did you, Colin
Whelan, on the 1st of March,

killed Mary Gough?"

and he looked round at me,
and he just looked at me

for a second or two, and he
looked back up at the judge

and he said, "guilty."

Colin Whelan's
admission of guilt

stunned the packed courtroom.

The Gough family
were very happy.

They were ecstatic.

But I looked around at his
family, the Whelan family.

They were gobsmacked.

They could not believe
what they heard.

They were convinced that their
Colin Whelan was innocent.

There's a few reasons
that Colin Whelan

might be pleading guilty.

It might be because he wants
the shock and the attention

that this is going to give
saying guilty at this moment.

It might be because he knows
that by entering a guilty plea,

you're more likely to get
a slightly reduced sentence

because you're saving
the court a trial.

But it also might
be simply because he

knows the evidence is
too strong against him,

and there's no way out.

Colin plead
guilty, in my mind,

I have no doubt about this,
that he didn't want his family

to know the details
of what he actually did,

and that would all come out
during the course of a trial.

As part
of his guilty plea,

Colin issued an apology
letter to the Gough family.

He explained he was
sorry for what he had done,

but it didn't wash
with the Gough family.

It was seen more of an insult
and a hurtful, paltry apology.

And it was self-serving, I
think, at the end of the day.

On April 12, 2005,
Colin Whelan was sentenced

for the murder of Mary Gough.

Addressing Colin, the judge
described Mary's murder

as the most
calculated and callous

killing he had ever encountered
in his entire time in court.

He then gave Colin Whelan
a mandatory sentence

of life imprisonment.

Colin
had tried to fool

his own family, the Gough
family, the Gardas, and

everyone else that
would listen to him,

that everything
was an accident.

He intended to cash
in his 400,000

and swan off
to wherever he wanted

to do whatever he wanted.

And that's what he thought.

But unfortunately, his
plan came to a sticky end.

Smart and all, and as clever
and all as he was,

he just wasn't as clever
as the investigator.

And I'm proud that it
had a successful outcome

for the Gough family.

This whole case,

from start to finish,
really seems

like Colin's attempt
to assert control and power

and show off his intelligence.

All of it is him, I think,
trying to really manipulate

those around him still.

It's all still about how
he's perceived by the public.

And that sort of narcissism
is a real common trait

that you see in people
with psychopathy.

Mary Gough's death
is unfortunately

one of many hundreds
that I've dealt with.

I've never forgotten it.

And I've never forgotten her.

And she's one of the ones
that stays with me.

And there's a few who do.

I think as a woman,
you feel for women

in those circumstances.

You think she was killed
by the person that she loved

and who told her
that he loved her.

And I think how often women
get into a situation like that

and assume that they're going
to have the happy ever after,

and then it all
goes horribly wrong.

It's just a tragedy.

Over two
decades since her death,

Mary is still fondly remembered
by those that knew her

and those involved
in the investigation.

I can tell you from what
I picked up about Mary,

from her friends,
from her family,

she was a beautiful,
kind, caring person.

She was very diligent,
very intelligent.

And what happened was
absolutely shocking.

But victims shouldn't be
forgot about, like, you know.

And as an investigator, you
get to know the deceased even

though you've never met them.

And I felt Mary was
really a beautiful woman,

a fine lady that suffered.

And unfortunately,
in this world,

there's too many women
that go through that.