A 17-year-old who was abducted and dismembered left a haunting final message for his mother before his death in a brutal gangland killing. Keane Mulready-Woods was enticed to a property on January 12, 2020, where he was tortured and decapitated. His limbs were thrown from a car in a sports bag onto a pavement in Moatview, while his head, hands and feet were later found in a burnt-out car in Dublin.
Before his disappearance, Keane rang his mother, informing her he would be home late and asking her to leave money out for a taxi. The teenager, embroiled in a drugs feud in Drogheda, had been recruited as a drugs courier for a local gang and was subject to a curfew requiring him home before dark. At the time of his death, he was on licence following a conviction for intimidating a local mother over drugs debts.
Prime suspect Robbie Lawlor allegedly killed Keane because he believed the teenager was implicated in the murder of his brother-in-law, Richie Carberry, in November 2019. Gardaí suspect Lawlor escalated from a planned 'punishment beating' to torture and dismemberment. An insider revealed: 'Lawlor was obsessed with Mulready-Woods and was determined to take his life because he was convinced he played a major role in Carberry's death.'
Lawlor, 36, had links to several murders and hundreds of criminal convictions before he was gunned down while collecting a drugs debt. In December 2019, he was acquitted of attempted murder charges. Weeks later, he was assaulted outside a gym, and his rivals posted photos wearing his flip-flops. One image shared after Keane's death bore the caption: 'Won't be robbing a man's flip-flops again.'
In February 2023, Paul Crosby received a 10-year prison sentence for facilitating Keane's murder, while Gerard 'Rocky' Cruise was given seven years. A third person, Gerard 'Ged' McKenna, confessed to cleaning up evidence. In a victim impact statement, Keane's mother Elizabeth said: 'No one could imagine the darkness and sadistic evil in our country... To lose my child, my son, my baby in a most inhumane, barbaric death is shocking. I couldn't protect him.'
