The brutal gangland murder of a 17-year-old boy, whose dismembered remains were scattered across Dublin, remains one of Ireland's most shocking crimes. Keane Mulready-Woods was lured to a house, tortured, and killed in a feud that exposed the savage reality of organised crime.
A Haunting Final Message and a Savage Feud
On the evening of 12 January 2020, Keane Mulready-Woods made a final, ordinary phone call to his mother, Elizabeth. He told her he would be home late and asked her to leave taxi money out for him. The teenager, who had been acting as a drug courier for a local gang in Drogheda, was under a strict curfew to be home before dark and had reportedly been adhering to the rules.
He was instead tricked into going to a house where he was subjected to a horrific ordeal. Gardaí believe he was brutally tortured before being beheaded. In a act designed to terrorise rival factions, his limbs were later discarded from a car in a sports bag on a footpath in Moatview. Days later, his head, hands and feet were discovered in a burned-out car in Dublin.
The Suspect and a Cycle of Violence
The prime suspect in the murder was seasoned criminal Robbie Lawlor, then 36. Lawlor, who had amassed hundreds of criminal convictions, allegedly believed Keane was involved in the murder of his brother-in-law, Richie Carberry, in November 2019. A source revealed Lawlor was "obsessed" with the teenager and was determined to take his life.
Initially claiming he would only deliver a "punishment beating" over a minor drug debt, Lawlor's violence escalated to unprecedented levels. The dismemberment of Keane's body was a calculated act of intimidation. The feud intensified, with images circulated online taunting Lawlor, including one showing rivals wearing his stolen flip-flops with the message: "Won't be robbing a man's flip-flops again."
Keane's murder ignited a string of retaliatory attacks. Lawlor himself was shot dead in Belfast in April 2020 while attempting to collect a drug debt. His assassination was widely seen as direct payback for the teenager's killing.
Justice and a Mother's Unending Grief
In the subsequent investigations, several individuals were convicted for their roles. In February 2023, Paul Crosby received a 10-year sentence for aiding the murder. His accomplice, Gerard 'Rocky' Cruise, was handed seven years. A third man, Gerard 'Ged' McKenna, admitted to cleaning up and disposing of evidence from the scene.
The human cost of the crime was captured in a devastating victim impact statement from Keane's mother, Elizabeth. She spoke of the "darkness and sadistic evil" and described hearing her son's voice calling for her. "To lose my child, my son, my baby in a most inhumane, barbaric death is shocking," she said, adding that a part of her died with him. "I couldn't protect him."
The case highlighted the dangerous pull of gang culture for vulnerable youths and the extreme violence underpinning drug feuds in Irish towns. Keane, who was out on licence at the time for intimidating a mother over her child's drug debt, became a tragic casualty in a conflict far beyond his control.
