Scissor Sisters (convicted killers)

Linda Mulhall was 30 years old at the time of the killing. She was unemployed, had left school early and had four children. The relationship with the father of her children broke up[8] and she got into another relationship with an individual called Wayne Kinsella who subsequently abused them, in one case beating the children with an electrical flex. The abuse was later investigated, and the children were taken into care by the social services, while Wayne Kinsella served a seven-year prison sentence for his cruelty to the children.[9] Kinsella himself had an extremely violent history, having been thrown out of school for violent behaviour, according to his elder sister, Donna. In a 2013 RTÉ Radio interview, Donna Kinsella said that her brother Wayne was always an extremely violent person, even during his childhood, and stated that he used to beat members of his own family, including his parents, and had broken her jaw on one occasion.[10] In May 1996, Kinsella received an eight-year prison sentence for the murder of a retired auctioneer, Thomas Foreman, who was killed while visiting his wife's grave in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin on 23 September 1995.[11] In May 2012, Kinsella was jailed for life after being found guilty of the murder of 29-year-old Dubliner Adil Essalhi, who was stabbed to death in a field near Tyrrelstown on 6 January 2011. Kinsella claimed he murdered Adil Essalhi, because he believed that Mr. Essalhi had been involved in the killing of his younger brother, Lee Kinsella, who was shot dead in Finglas in May 2006.[12] Wayne's sister Donna said Mr. Essalhi had nothing to do with Lee's death.[10] Linda Mulhall, meanwhile, had a history of alcohol abuse and suffered from an addiction to heroin. She had one previous conviction in 1993 for larceny.[4]

Charlotte Mulhall was 21 years old when the killing took place. Like her sister, she had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. She had a number of minor previous convictions for criminal damage and public order offences and was charged with criminal damage and given the Probation Act in October 2005. She was also involved in prostitution.[13]

During their trial, gardaí described the girls' upbringing as "troubled and tough".[14]

On the day of the killing, Linda, Charlotte, their mother and Farah Swaleh Noor had been drinking heavily in Dublin city centre. Farah bought vodka and Kathleen Mulhall purchased Coca-Cola which they drank as they walked around the city before stopping on the River Liffey Boardwalk where Charlotte and her mother took ecstasy tablets. They returned to Kathleen Mulhall's flat where the women took ecstasy. Kathleen Mulhall crushed a tablet into the victim's drink so they were "all on" the same "buzz".[5]

Linda and Noor were sitting on a two-seater couch with Charlotte sitting on the arm, when Noor started touching Linda in a sexual way. He spoke into her ear, put his arms around her waist and refused to let her go. Kathleen then started screaming at him and a verbal altercation took place where Kathleen Mulhall was alleged to have instructed them to "just kill him for me". Charlotte picked up a Stanley knife and struck Noor across the throat, inflicting a wound that sent him to the ground. Linda then picked up a hammer and hit him on the head a number of times. Their mother looked on but did not participate. Noor was stabbed at least 27 times. It may have been more, but pathologists had no opportunity to examine the full body.[18]

Linda and Charlotte then dragged Noor's corpse into the bathroom where they began to dismember the remains. Noor's head, limbs and penis were severed using a kitchen knife and hammer. They put towels over his legs to stem the flow of blood. The dismemberment took a number of hours and the body parts were placed in black plastic bags and a sports bag before being disposed of in the Royal Canal. This took the three women several trips. They decided not to throw the head in to prevent identification. The head was brought by bus to Tallaght where they walked through The Square Shopping Centre to Sean Walsh Memorial Park.[19] They walked to where Charlotte dug a hole with a knife to bury the head. Kathleen Mulhall threw the knives and the hammer into a nearby pond. A number of days later, Linda Mulhall allegedly returned to the park and dug up the head. Using her son's schoolbag, she transferred it to a field in the Killinarden Estate, Tallaght, where she broke it up with a hammer before burying it again.[6]

Linda and Charlotte were both charged with murder and pleaded not guilty in the Central Criminal Court. Their trial took place in October 2006 with Linda Mulhall being found guilty of manslaughter while her sister Charlotte was found guilty of the murder of Noor. Linda's jury accepted her defence of provocation.

Charlotte Mulhall was given the mandatory life sentence and Linda Mulhall was given a 15-year sentence for manslaughter. The judge argued that Linda, a heroin addict, had initially tried to halt the trial by refusing to take methadone. Leave to appeal was refused for both sentences.[13][21]

Linda Mulhall appealed the severity of her sentence[22] on the grounds that it was passed without psychiatric and probation reports. This appeal failed, with the Court of Criminal Appeal finding the sentence to be appropriate.[23]

Charlotte Mulhall requested leave to appeal her conviction on the grounds that Justice Carney had put pressure on the jury to reach a verdict even though the foreman had indicated they were deadlocked.[24] This failed on the grounds that the defence did not raise objections to the comments during the trial and the fact that the jury was not affected by any alleged undue pressure to reach a verdict.[25]

Kathleen Mulhall voluntarily returned to Ireland in February 2008 and was charged with, among other offences, two counts of giving false information to gardaí about Noor's whereabouts, and withholding information which she "knew or believed" would be of assistance in prosecuting her daughters for Noor's murder. She was also charged with impeding an arrest in the murder investigation. She pleaded guilty to helping to clean up the crime scene to conceal evidence.[26][27] Kathleen Mulhall was sentenced to five years in prison in May 2009.[28]

The girls' father, John Mulhall, hanged himself in Phoenix Park when his daughters were charged with the killing in December 2005. He was not believed to have been involved in the killing.[2]

Linda Mulhall turned to alcohol and slashed her arms, causing her to spend over a week in a psychiatric hospital.[6] In April 2009, she claimed to fellow inmates that she had in fact smashed Noor's head and distributed the fragments in rubbish bins in the Phoenix Park.[3] This first disclosure of where Noor's head had ended up, was referred to as "the final secret of the Scissor Sisters" by Cormac Looney in the Evening Herald.[3]

Charlotte caused a further national controversy in 2008 when photographs of her jokingly holding a knife to the throat of a male prisoner in Mountjoy Prison were leaked to the press. As a result, security in Irish prisons was increased.[29] and Charlotte was moved to Limerick Prison, the only other Irish prison to contain a women's unit.

The girls' brother, James Mulhall, pleaded guilty to the robbery of two prostitutes, claiming he robbed the women to support his own six children and his sister Linda's four children whom he took on after she was jailed.[30]

The case received a high amount of attention due to the grotesque and macabre nature of the crime. This led to the sisters being dubbed "The Scissor Sisters" by the media after the pop group from New York, USA.

Several books were written on the circumstances surrounding the death of Farah Swaleh Noor:

• The Torso in the Canal — John Mooney (Maverick House, ISBN 978-1-905379-38-5)
• The Irish Scissor Sisters — Mick McCaffrey (Merlin Publishing, ISBN 1-903582-72-5)[1] McCaffrey covered the case for the Sunday Tribune.[1]

The 2009 RTÉ television series Killers featured the Mulhall sisters.[31]

Linda Mulhall was released in 2018, having served over 12 years of a 15-year sentence.[32]