Fear and loathing follow in the footsteps of feared criminal
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According to reports and rumours, Larry Murphy was all over the place.
Depending on where you read the latest on his whereabouts, he was in a Dublin city centre hotel; buying a change of clothes in Next on Grafton Street; stopping into McDonald's, or enjoying a quiet pint in a pub in Blackrock.
Yesterday's rumours followed a protest by a 200-strong crowd outside Priorswood House in Coolock in Dublin, a halfway house for ex-convicts, on Thursday night, amid speculation he was there.
The Pace Organisation, which runs the facility, issued a letter addressed to local residents to reassure them that they had no contact with the rapist.
"We phoned the gardai at 6.30pm when a crowd began to arrive. It was just a false rumour, but they still came and the message just got around by texting and through the internet," said Pace Director Lisa Cuthbert.
"You don't put sex offenders in the middle of a housing estate or with ordinary offenders", she added.
Calm
Local Sinn Fein Councillor Larry O' Toole said he was contacted by a number of people in the area and tried to calm the hysteria. "I told those gathered outside he wasn't there but they didn't believe me. Some accepted what I told them and some didn't."
Jonathan Whelan who works as a barman in nearby Martin's pub in Clonshaugh rubbished rumours that Murphy had appeared in his pub on Thursday.
"Loads of people thought he was going to be in here because it's only two minutes down the road and he needed to get access to food and water and drink. Maybe when he got out of prison he wanted a drink like", said Mr Whelan.
"He was supposedly here at around four or five but I was in here all day and there was no sign of him -- he definitely wasn't in here," he added.
A manager of a south Dublin hotel said the first she heard of him supposedly staying at her hotel was when a reporter rang her that morning saying a taxi driver had dropped him off there.
"The first thing I did was check to see if there were any late arrivals but there were just families checked in," she said.
- Niamh O'Donoghue
Irish Independent
