Name Murder Margaret | ||
Margaret Perry was a twenty-six-year-old native of Portadown, abducted on 21 June 1991. Her body was found buried in a field in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, on 30 June 1992. She had been beaten to death.
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Background
Margaret Perry was a civil servant, working at Training and Employment in Lisburn. A Catholic, she lived with her widowed mother, Mary, at Churchill Park, Portadown. She disappeared on 21 June 1991. A year later, on 30 June 1992, acting on a tip-off from the IRA via a local priest, her body was found not far from Mullaghmore. She had been strangled and beaten to death with a spade, then buried in a shallow grave in a forest not far from the former estate of the late Lord Mountbatten.
Deaths of Burns, Dignam, Starrs
In June 1992, shortly after the recovery of Perry's body, the PIRA admitted responsibility for the killing of three men, whose bodies were found at different roadsides in County Armagh. The IRA claimed the men, all members of the IRA, were undercover agents for MI5 and the RUC Special Branch. The IRA had tried and executed them, leaving their naked, hooded bodies in ditches. The bodies bore evidence of beatings and each had single bullet wounds to the back of the head. They were thirty-three-year-old Gregory Burns, John Dignam (aged 32) and Aidan Starrs (aged 29), all natives of Portadown.
The IRA justified the killings by linking them to the abduction and murder of Margaret Perry. They claimed that one of the men, Gergory Burns, had an affair with Perry; the IRA claimed she threatened to expose his group's intelligence links, so the three men kidnapped and murdered her. Because the bodies may have been booby-trapped, they were left in place overnight. The killings were notable because they were the first for eight weeks in Northern Ireland, and during peace talks.
Force Research Unit
It was later revealed that the Force Research Unit had recruited the three men, and that the man in charge of their interrogation and executions was Freddie Scappaticci, another FRU agent who had infiltrated the IRA's Internal Security Unit.
Gregory Burns had been an aide to Owen Carron, election worker for Bobby Sands, and his brother, Sean, had been killed in 1982 in an operation Gergory had helped set up (the incident was one of the 'shoot-to-kill' controversies of the 1980s). By 1991 Burns had been instrumental in foiling many IRA operations in Northern Ireland. He wanted to break up with Perry, his girlfriend at the time, but was fearful she would reveal that he had told her he was working for British Intelligence. Burns consulted his handlers, who agreed that he, Dignam and Starrs should get out before they were uncovered. But the head of the FRU - Brigadier Gordon Kerr - refused, telling Burns to clear up his personal mess. Burns replied that if he and his comrades were not pulled out by the FRU, he would certainly have to kill Perry. Burns travelled to Sligo to undergo a minor arm operation in June 1991. On 21 June, Dignam and Starrs drove Perry to Sligo, ostensibly to see Burns, but outside Mullaghmore she was strangled and beaten to death with a spade, burying her in a shallow forest grave.
Investigations into Perry's disappearance by Sunday World reporter Martin O'Hagan prompted IRA interest. Freddie Scappaticci and his unit interrogated Burns, Dignam and Starrs the following year, leading to their deaths. Taped confessions by the three men recorded by Scappaticci were later played to Peter Taylor in his BBC documentary. The IRA gave information to a Sligo priest that led to Perry's body being recovered. Three days later, after nearly two weeks interrogation, the three men were found dumped in County Armagh. All bore evidence of torture. After Dignam's funeral, a letter by him was given to his pregnant wife:
I have only a matter of hours to live. I only wish I could see you and the kids one last time, but as you know, this is not possible.