Crime World

Retired garda detective Eddie Naugton spent the last 16 years of his career working on the Sandra Collins case. He remembers all the details and who was investigated. He recalls how few days after Sandra went missing, a local plasterer called Martin Earley dropped into the garda station to inquire how the search was going. Suspicions are raised about this married man and why he’s so interested in what has happened to a woman he claims to have only met in recent weeks. There is no sign of Sandra, her family cling on to hope that she has simply moved away. But in 2010 her case is finally upgraded to a murder inquiry.  

On 5th December 2000 Ann O’Grady rings the Collins family to tell them Sandra has failed to return home after being out the night before. A major search is launched, covering miles of the surrounding countryside. Lifeboats comb the nearby waters, but there’s no sign of Sandra, apart from her dark pink coloured fleece jacket, which mysteriously turns up on the pier five days after she goes missing. There are two scraps of paper in the pockets, one has the phone number for an abortion clinic in the UK, the other has a mobile number for a local man. But the Collins family aren’t told who he is or what his connection to Sandra is about.  

Sandra visits home every Sunday evening to see her family, however, they know little about her day-to-day existence in Killala. They are shocked when she reveals her pregnancy in the late 90s but are also completely supportive. Sandra makes the difficult decision to give her baby daughter up for adoption. The Collins family are deeply saddened by the move but understand it. A short time later, they experience a huge tragedy when their brother James is killed in a horrific workplace accident. It takes a toll on all of them, and Sandra must deal with her grief without them close by.  

Hailed as one of the oldest settlements in Ireland, Killala has a long and chequered history. St Patrick is rumoured to have brought a dead woman back to life in the centre of the village, while a French general landed there with more than 1,000 troops to kick off the 1798 Rebellion against English rule. In the late 80s, Ann O’Grady gets a small council flat on Courthouse Street in the village and brings her niece Sandra Collins to live with her. Shy and quiet, the locals know little about the teenager, apart from that she’s very young to be taking care of a disabled aunt. Her siblings try to persuade her to come home to them, but for some reason, Sandra insists on staying in Killala.

Despite early tragedy and straitened circumstances, the Collins family enjoy a loving and stable childhood in the townland of Fotish, near Crossmolina. They may have little in the way of material wealth, but the six children are doted on by their parents, and two aunts, Bridie and Ann.However, when Ann develops a painful degenerative condition, and her marriage breaks up, one of the Collins children is expected to go stay with her. In the end it’s Sandra who moves in. It’s supposed to be for just a few weeks, but turns into months, and then years. 

While clearing out their aunt and uncle’s house in Liverpool, the Collins family find a tape recording of their eldest sister, Sandra, reading out a poem she learned in school. It has been more than two decades since they last heard her voice. The 28-year-old disappeared on a bitterly cold winter’s night in 2000 from Killala, a fishing village on Mayo’s north coast. For years her family hold out hope that she has simply run away from her domineering aunt and would one day return to them. But as time goes on it becomes clear that something much more sinister has happened to Sandra, and there is much about her life in Killala they have never known. 

The disappearance of Sandra Collins remains one of the most frustrating murder cases on the books of An Garda Síochána.Aged 28, she was pregnant and planning an abortion when she disappeared on a bitterly cold December night in 2000 from the fishing village of Killala in County Mayo.Ten years later, her case was upgraded to a murder inquiry and a subsequent trial heard she had been having a relationship with a local married man Martin Earley.A jury at his trial were ordered to acquit him after five weeks of evidence yet the hunt goes on for the remains of a beloved sister, daughter, and friend.Nicola speaks with Jenny Friel about our nine-part podcast special Ghost: The Disappearance of Sandra Collins.

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