Serial killer John Shaw smirks as he leaves prison to explore Dublin city centre, sampling what was to be his first taste of freedom in 46 years.
The evil rapist and murderer – who with accomplice Geoffrey Evans became known as the State’s first serial killers – has been behind bars since September 1976.
But lifer Shaw, 75, left cushy Arbour Hill prison last weekend for a day out in the capital flanked by two plain clothes prison officers.
He won the right to two days’ annual escorted temporary release years ago, but had not been allowed out on the grounds that he still poses a danger to women.
However after talk of a fresh legal challenge, Ireland’s longest serving inmate walked out of the prison gates last Sunday morning and spent the day strolling around the city.
Clad in black slacks, a white shirt, purple tie and Nike jacket, a relaxed looking Shaw was grinning from ear to ear as he left the jail and got into a white car parked outside.
As our exclusive pictures show, he could easily have passed as a harmless pensioner out for a ramble around town on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
A source told the Irish Sunday Mirror how the serial killer had been looking forward to his day out after previous planned sorties were cancelled due to the pandemic.
The source said: “He has no family or friends in Ireland, so he wanted to go and have a walk around Dublin city centre and stop off for a coffee in a cafe. I’m sure people sitting across from him would have assumed he was just an old man out with his two grown-up grandsons.
“Little did they know they were looking into the face of one of the most dangerous rapists and killers the country has ever seen.”
Lifer Shaw who has only been pictured once before – in 2017 as he left jail for a hospital appointment – is likely to die in jail because of the severity of his crimes.
He met Geoffrey Evans in an English prison where they hatched their chilling plot to abduct, torture, rape and murder women.
The career criminals, from Lancashire, left the UK and travelled around Ireland in the summer of 1976 resolving to kill one woman a week.
The twisted killing spree ended with the murder of young clerk Elizabeth Plunkett, 22, in Co Wicklow and cook Mary Duffy, 24, in Co Mayo.
Shaw and Evans were handed life sentences in February 1978. Evans spent almost four years in a coma at a Dublin hospital and died of sepsis in 2012. The city has drastically changed since Shaw was first locked up over four decades ago and he took in many new sights including the Luas tracks and the Convention Centre.
A source said prison veteran Shaw, who works recycling computer parts behind bars, is a grumpy inmate who doesn’t interact with anybody.
The source said: “Except for when he is working, he spends the majority of his time in his cell with his pet budgie called Geoffrey, named after his late killer friend.
“It was long thought that he would never see the light of day following his sickening crimes but he was given the go-ahead to have two days TR [temporary release]. There were a number of occasions when he was due to be allowed out but due to the pandemic the dates kept getting pushed back.
“He wanted to have a walk around the city and that’s exactly what he got. He had prison officers with him the whole time who closely watched his every move.
“He was back in the jail that evening and appears to have really enjoyed his taste of freedom. Why wouldn’t he? It’s the first time he has been outside of prison in over four decades.”
Shaw’s case was under review by the Parole Board, but he was only granted permission for days out in 2020 after the then Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan reversed his earlier decision to refuse it.
In 2016 the Prison Review Committee noted how Shaw was “very frustrated” that he hadn’t gotten a day out of prison in his 38 years in custody.
Their report added: “He has no family in Ireland and only received one family visit over the course of his entire sentence.”
Shaw and Evans were facing extradition back to the UK where they were wanted for rape when they began their sickening murder spree. The violence of their attacks on their unsuspecting victims was recounted in court and their crimes shocked the nation.
The evil pair abducted Elizabeth Plunkett as she walked along a dark road after leaving McDaniel’s pub in Brittas.
After the unsuspecting young woman got in the car, the two men violently attacked her, hitting her and dragging her to the back seat.
Elizabeth was savagely beaten before being taken to woods at Castletymon and raped by the two men, first Shaw and then Evans. She was then strangled.
Shaw said later: “We had been talking about girls and Geoff said he was going to pick up a bird and have it off with her.
“He wanted a small bird. We took the girl’s clothes off her. We tied the lawnmower around her body with the rope.”
The pair rowed out to sea and threw their victim’s body overboard. On September 26, 1976, Shaw followed Mary Duffy who was walking home from her shift as a cook in Castlebar, Co Mayo.
He punched her so hard in the face that her braces broke out of her mouth and would later be found by gardai.
Evans then drove their stolen Ford Cortina up alongside them and Shaw put her in the car.
The two brutes then tied her hands and took turns raping her in the back of the vehicle before arriving in Ballinahinch, Co Galway. Ms Duffy was held captive in a tent that the men had pitched and continued to be raped repeatedly.
Shaw later gave her some tablets and put a cushion from the robbed car over her head before putting his hands around her neck and killing her.
They disposed of her body by tying a concrete block to her legs, a sledgehammer to her waist and a small block to her body and threw her in Lough Inagh.
Later when they were arrested the pair admitted their sick spree and led gardai to sites in Wicklow and Galway where they had committed the crimes.
En route to Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison after being charged, Shaw leaned in and confessed to Garda Detective Gerry O’Carroll how the pair planned on “doing one a week”.
The court later heard how Shaw had told a garda: “I didn’t want to do it. It was Geoff made me do it.
“God help me. The devil made me do it. Keep him away from me.”
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