NOTORIOUS gang boss Jeffrey Mitchell was found dead of a suspected heroin overdose in a hostel – along with €50,000 worth of drugs.
It is believed Mitchell, who was one of the most vicious criminals to walk the streets of Dublin, couldn’t resist the temptation of sampling the drugs.
He was found dead in the hostel in Swords, North Dublin, on Friday night.
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Mitchell, who at one time was one of biggest suppliers of heroin in Dublin, was released from prison in 2019 after serving three years for attacking a woman as she walked home late at night.
He is also suspected of being involved in at least two murders – including that of a 22-year old heroin addict who was tortured to death.
A senior source said: “He was found in a hostel in Swords and had obviously ODed with the €50,000 worth of heroin.
“He was probably tasting too much of his product. He got carried away on his own as he would be.
“He was one evil man. He was flooding Dublin with drugs before the Kinahans kicked in. He was the main controller in Crumlin.”
The source added: “He is no loss to society. He had over 70 convictions and is suspected of two murders.
“[One was] Dave McKeever because he believed he informed on him.
“He is suspected of murdering Neil Hanlon. He [Hanlon] was stabbed 30 times and had his penis and the tops of his fingers cut off.
“Mitchell was so arrogant that he was selling drugs in a local pub where guards drank in Crumlin.
“He was the main man in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Everyone was afraid of him at that time.
“He was involved with all the main players in the drugs scene when it was kicking off.
“Along with Jimmy Edgeworth, he controlled the drugs in Crumlin and they did unbelievable things. Mitchell is also the suspect for a rape as well.”
In 2016 Mitchell, 49, was jailed for three years for an unprovoked assault on a woman walking home alone from a night out with friends in Phibsboro, Dublin, in 2013
He had told her during the attack he would throw her into the Royal Canal if she kept moving.
Over the years there have been a number of attempts on Mitchell’s life.
In August 2004 he was left fighting for his life after he had his throat cut in his prison cell in the Midlands Prison. The attackers smashed a cereal bowl over his head before slicing open his neck with the broken shards trying to cut off his ears and nose.
Mitchell was found in a pool of blood and taken to Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital in a critical condition but he eventually made a full recovery.
Two years earlier he was arrested by the Special Response Unit as he tried to rob a jeweller for which he was sentenced to six years. Mitchell was believed to have worked closely with then on-the-run gangsters Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg, the leaders of the notorious Westies gang. Both Coates and Sugg would later be murdered in Spain.
That was the second assassination attempt on Mitchell. In 2001, three men tried to kill him when he was staying with his mother in Crumlin.
The gang burst into the house intent on shooting him but ended up blasting the legs of a dog. Mitchell managed to get out on to the roof of his mother’s house and made his escape by running across the rooftops. Mitchell’s mother looked on as one of the men shot her son’s pitbull terrier.
The dog survived but had to have a leg amputated.
It is suspected that Mitchell was carrying out a quality control exercise on the drugs by sampling some of it and it proved to be much purer than he expected and overdosed.
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