Mary Gough | Pushed to Death | FilmRise True Crime | Forensic Files

[theme music] NARRATOR: A fatal fall at a newlyweds home in Ireland. A young woman's life cut short just six months
after getting married. - She was a beautiful, caring person. And what happened was absolutely shocking.
NARRATOR: Was it simply a tragic accident? - They find Mary at the foot of the stairs.
She's covered with a heavy duvet and she's bleeding from her nose and mouth. NARRATOR: Or murder?
MARIE CASSIDY: Within minutes of actually seeing Mary's body, I knew there was something wrong here.
PAT MARRY: I said, "you may sharpen your pencil. We have a murder investigation."
[theme music] AMBER HAQUE: Mary Gough was born on the 22nd of December, 1973, in Drogheda in County Louth.
She was born to a large Catholic family of five children. Her parents were Marie and James,
and Mary was the only daughter of the family, and she was described as laid back, independent,
and really friendly, and the heart and soul of the family. NARRATOR: When Mary was growing up,
Pat Marry was a local police officer who would later get to know Mary's family well.
- Mary's family were all very close. Her father had died when she was very young,
and I guess the fact that she lost her dad brought the family even closer. She shone as a person who had a degree of love and compassion,
was just a downright lovely person. And her mother, Marie, would say that she was her best friend.
She went to the local secondary school, and she had the aspirations of all young women of her age.
She wanted to meet someone, get married, have children, raise a family, do the things that most normal people
would like to do. NARRATOR: In her late teens, Mary met a man who she wanted to spend the rest of her
life with. - In the early 1990s, when Mary left school, she got a job in a pub called the Huntsman,
and it was there that she met a man called Colin Whelan. Colin was a guy from a similar area to Mary,
and he was slightly older than her. - She was 19 years old at the time, and it became very apparent early on that the two of them
hit it off and they were quite close. He was very amenable to Mary's friends, and he was a good-looking guy.
He was over 6-foot. He was a good catch, let's say. Colin was an impressive individual.
He went to Dundalk Institute of Technology, and there he acquired a qualification
in computer science. And after that, he acquired a job in Irish Permanent Building Society
to do programming for them. NARRATOR: Mary's career at a law firm was also taking off
and the future looked bright for Colin and Mary. But in the mid 1990s, their relationship
hit a sudden rough patch. - In 1995, Colin broke up for a period of time with Mary.
She was heartbroken and confided in her mother and she really was devastated. And Colin at that stage said he wanted to break it off.
He didn't want to see her again. But as things progressed, they got back together again
and it appeared to everybody and Mary's family and Colin's family that the relationship was
going in the right direction. And he proposed in 1998 for them to get married. - --to do it, Mary, and then we'll get you sorted.
AMBER HAQUE: On the 9th of September in 2000, Mary and Colin were married. On the day, Mary was quite nervous,
but she was comforted by her older brother, who walked her down the aisle. The newlyweds quickly settled into married life.
They moved into an area called Balbriggan. It's 20 miles north of Dublin. And there, they renovated a new house together.
NARRATOR: Newlyweds Mary and Colin had a lot to look forward to as they embarked on their new
life together. But just six months after their wedding, at 12:16 AM on March 1, 2001, an emergency
call was made by Colin. [ambulance siren wailing] AMBER HAQUE: 20 minutes later, the paramedics
and the fire brigade arrived. They find Mary at the foot of the stairs. She's covered with a heavy duvet
and she's bleeding from her nose and mouth. Colin Whelan was stood over his wife's body in a daze.
He was asking paramedics, "is Mary dead or alive?" NARRATOR: As first responders tended to Mary,
they asked Colin what had happened. AMBER HAQUE: Colin claimed that Mary's sleeve
from her dressing gown must have got caught on the banister, and that's what caused her to fall,
because there was a tear on the sleeve area. The paramedics found Mary in cardiac arrest.
They began CPR on her in the ambulance as they rushed her towards Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
NARRATOR: Colin followed the ambulance. And after Mary's family were informed of her accident,
they rushed to the hospital to be with their daughter. [tense music] - But when they arrived at the hospital,
they were told that the doctors could do nothing more and Mary was pronounced dead.
NARRATOR: As Colin and Mary's family processed the devastating news of 27-year-old Mary Gough's tragic
fatal fall, the police, known in Ireland as the "Garda," were notified of her passing.
At the time, Pat Marry was a Detective Sergeant in nearby Balbriggan. Following standard procedure for all
of a sudden deaths in Ireland, he was instructed to investigate how Mary had died.
PAT MARRY: At this stage, Colin Whelan had made it known that it was only himself and
his wife that were in the house, and she fell down the stairs. NARRATOR: Colin was then interviewed as a witness
to explain exactly what had happened. - Colin relayed to the Garda in a statement
that he was in, watching the TV. His wife had gone up to have a shower. After a period of time, he heard thump, thump, thump.
And he opened the sitting room door and there on the bottom of the stairs was Mary
and she was unresponsive. NARRATOR: Colin's witness statement suggested Mary's death was the result
of a tragic accidental fall. But after speaking to staff at the hospital where Mary was pronounced dead, officers
had more questions for Colin. PAT MARRY: At Beaumont Hospital, Nurse Galvin went over to sympathize with Colin
and she noticed his shirt opened and she could see scratch marks. And Superintendent Thomas Gallagher,
a very experienced detective, spoke with Colin and he was asked what were they. And he tried to brush them away and he said,
"oh, when she flailed out of me, she must have scratched me." But that's the first time he ever
said that, because that was never an issue on the 999 call he had made. He had told her that she wasn't breathing,
she was unresponsive. But he changed his story when he saw the scratch marks. NARRATOR: As a result of the unusual marks on Colin,
a postmortem was ordered to verify Mary's cause of death and their home was cordoned off.
- Given what Nurse Galvin had seen and what Tom Gallagher, the Superintendent, had witnessed the scratches on him,
he thought it best that the house should be preserved on the basis that if Colin Sweeney's story was not true,
at least they were able to have their house examined. [tense music] NARRATOR: After Mary Gough's fatal fall down the stairs
at the home she shared with husband Colin Whelan, police continued to investigate whether her death
was an accident as Colin had claimed. As part of procedure, they carried out a background check on Colin.
- He was a normal guy. A good job, well thought of in work. And there was nothing in Colin's past that anyone should
be concerned about in his relationship with Mary as far as her family were concerned and his family.
They had a perfect marriage. They were very happy together. NARRATOR: The day after Mary died,
a state pathologist carried out the postmortem on Mary's body. MARIE CASSIDY: I'm Marie Cassidy,
and I was a forensic pathologist on call when Mary Gough died. I was brought in because if there was something
unusual about her death, the state pathology department would be asked to investigate.
Usually in the first instance when I hear about a death, there's very little information available.
And I don't seek information because I would rather go in and make up my own mind
about what I think happened. Within minutes of actually seeing Mary's body, I knew there was something far wrong here.
This wasn't an accidental death. This wasn't a death following a simple fall down the stairs.
I didn't see the normal bumps and scrapes on the arms and the legs I would have expected in the circumstances.
What I did notice was that Mary's face was discolored. Normally, after death, the face is rather pale.
Mary's face was not pale. Mary's face was a blue purple color. When I looked at the neck, I could
see that there was a distinct line from the neck down. The skin was the pale color I would normally have expected.
Mid-deck upwards, there was this purple blue discoloration of the skin, and that was immediately concerning.
She had small pinpoint hemorrhages. We call these particular hemorrhages, and I noticed them in and around the eyes.
I then proceeded to do a neck dissection. This is a very detailed examination, and I examined the neck layer by layer.
And then I get to the skeleton of the neck. And that's your Adam's apple, the larynx.
But it was the bone above that, the hyoid bone I found was broken. Injuries to the neck structures are not
common in accidental falls downstairs because you've got a tumbling motion, and therefore the neck is what we call a protected area.
It does happen. But if you've only got a neck injury in isolation, it doesn't quite make sense about this
being a fall downstairs. Once I found the damage to the hyoid bone and taking that with the marker across the neck, discoloration
of the face, the small pinpoint hemorrhages in and around the eyes, this then confirmed
my suspicion that Mary's neck had been compressed. And at that stage, I was quite firm in that this was a case
of ligature strangulation. And Mary had been murdered. NARRATOR: It was a shocking discovery
that dramatically changed the course of their investigation. PAT MARRY: Marie Cassidy came into the office to me,
and she says "this girl was murdered. It's not a tragic fall down the stairs." And I was a little bit taken aback because I
wasn't expecting that. And she said she's been asphyxiated by strangulation by way of ligature.
I said to her, how sure are you about this. And probably a bit cheeky of me asking like, because I
wasn't expecting that. She says, I'm 110% sure. Marie Cassidy was quite solid in her findings.
I got on to my superintendent and my very words to him were, I said, "you may sharpen your pencil.
We have a murder investigation." - Strangulation is actually a very personal method of murder.
And that's because it often involves looking someone directly in the face as you kill them.
And on top of that, it actually takes quite a long time for someone to pass away from asphyxiation.
Most commonly then you see asphyxiation murders in relation to either anger and rage-based murders,
or sexually-motivated murders. PAT MARRY: The Gough family had to be told that it was a murder.
We could see that there were a very close family and that they were very, very close to Colin Whelan and
his family. The next day, Mary's brother came down to the station with his partner and we told him, look,
we're treating this as a murder. Mary was murdered. She was strangled, and it's now a murder investigation.
Colin was the only person in the house at the time with Mary, so it leaves a finger of suspicion
on Colin. They could not believe what we were saying. We asked them not to engage with Colin Whelan,
and not to do anything foolish. NARRATOR: Until Colin was made a suspect in Mary's death,
her family had seen nothing to suggest that he was capable of committing such a horrific act.
HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND: From an outsider's perspective, looking at Colin and Mary's relationship,
there might not be any immediate red flags or concerns about his behavior or the state
of their relationship, or his likelihood to go on to harm her, to kill her. But that doesn't mean that there's not stuff
going on behind the scenes. There might still have been escalations of behavior that the general public are just not aware of.
NARRATOR: Following the pathologist's findings, investigators asked Colin about his movements
on the day of Mary's death. He told them that it was a normal working day, except that he went to a luxury department store around midday.
PAT MARRY: Colin, during lunch hour at work, had purchased a bronze ornament for his wife Mary, and
the lady who served him remembered him because of him saying he loved his wife and he wanted to surprise her and all that, you know.
And she thought that was very nice. NARRATOR: Colin was also asked about his whereabouts
after work. PAT MARRY: He said, "look, I came home from work." He changed and went out again to go to the gym.
He was there for an hour, returned home again. Himself and Mary were there. They had some dinner.
NARRATOR: Officers confirmed Colin's claims by checking his home security alarm logs.
And with a clean criminal record, there was nothing to suggest any suspicious behavior
by Colin in the lead up to Mary's death. - Someone escalating from having no criminal behavior in their past, suddenly all the way
up to murder can happen. It really depends on the motive behind the murder. Often, though, what you see in cases of domestic homicide
like this appears to be is there is normally a pattern of escalation of behaviors
before the moment of murder. But that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone's been apprehended or
any criminal charges have been brought for those prior behaviors. And a lot of the time, things that we see as red flags or
issues or concerns from someone are a lot easier to see in retrospect than they are in the moment.
NARRATOR: Within days of Mary's death, her funeral service took place. - All the Gardas that were involved in the investigation
attended to show their support for the family, and also to see the reaction of Colin Whelan and his family.
Colin was acting as a cold individual. He was a big man. He was 6-foot 5". He was a well-built man, but he was cold.
He had no emotion in his face. He had no tears in his eyes. He didn't put his hands up to his face.
He didn't show any emotion that he was going to bury his wife. None whatsoever. - Colin appearing very emotionally
withdrawn at the funeral isn't inherently a red flag. Everyone responds to trauma and loss and grief
in very different ways. Some people withdraw into themselves, and so whilst it might not look how everyone would expect someone
to present at a funeral. It doesn't necessarily indicate anything sinister in and of itself.
The investigation into Colin Whelan was well underway, but the police at this point were yet to establish a motive.
- Every murder has a motive, and you have to find that motive. Because if you find the motive, it will lead you to the killer.
Was Colin having an affair? Was he trying to get rid of his wife? Was there financial difficulties?
That's what we needed to determine. NARRATOR: Investigators decided to search for clues
on Colin's computers. PAT MARRY: It was decided that it would be prudent to seize his computers and view them,
to see if there was anything on it of evidential value. His own personal computer we took from his house.
There was nothing on it. It appeared to have been wiped, and there was nothing of evidential value
accruing from that computer. - But when investigators turned to Colin's work computers,
they found he didn't realize that his searches had been saved to an external server.
PAT MARRY: They had what they called a double proxy server. I never heard of that before.
I didn't even know what it was. And they said, we have a server that captures absolutely everything that any of our employees
do on a daily basis. So I said, "you're telling me anything that he looked up or done would be saved?"
"Yes." So I said, "happy days." NARRATOR: But getting to Colin's specific computer
activity meant finding a way to navigate through months of data covering 60 other employees.
- They decided that they would devise a program and key it into the logs and look for key words
like murder or strangulation or that type of thing. And that's exactly what they did.
AMBER HAQUE: What the police found was chilling. Colin Whelan had been searching terms like asphyxiation,
how to block a windpipe, and how long does it take to die from choking. PAT MARRY: What was sickening to me
is that he was looking up asphyxiation and strangulation before he got married. So he had this intention, obviously,
before he got married and played out the six months of marriage like the perfect husband
and then killed her. It brought it home to me. There was no doubt in my mind at that stage
that Colin Whelan had strangled his wife, and he was the murderer, and that he had researched how to do it and to make it look like a fall
down the stairs. It was shocking, really. - In premeditated murders, it is fairly common for someone
to do research before committing the act, especially if they are planning to try and get away
with it because they're often looking at different potential murder methods, different ways
to maybe stage a scene or to make it look like an accident. And all of that's very intentional
for them trying to be organized, trying to get away with it. NARRATOR: Police also discovered
that Colin took an unhealthy interest in serial killers. PAT MARRY: What was hugely relevant was his research
into Henry Louis Wallace, because the nine women he killed and eventually was caught for,
he had strangled them but never left a ligature mark. - Copycat murders are relatively rare,
but they are well-documented in criminology. They are understood as a phenomenon.
What you often see in copycat killers is that they are replicating the behavior of that offender,
perhaps because they share an ideology with them, or perhaps actually because they
have a sense of grandiosity and they think they can do the same act, but better.
So you have to wonder, in the case of Colin, whether he looked at this case, he saw the method by which
these murders had occurred, and he tried to replicate them thinking that he could do it better.
- Our access to his computer spelt out to us this cold-blooded and methodical individual
who used the internet to follow his plan. But we still had not established at that stage what the motive was for killing his wife.
[tense music] NARRATOR: After investigators established that Mary Gough died from ligature strangulation,
her husband Colin, who had claimed she fell down the stairs, became the prime suspect as detectives
continued to search for a motive. - Colin has said it was only him and her in the house at the time,
and Colin had given up his keys to the house. So we searched his house. NARRATOR: As a forensic team scoured
Colin and Mary's marital home for clues, they came across vital evidence in the couple's bedroom.
- The blood staining on the wall between the en suite and the main door was extremely evident.
When you're being strangled, blood vessels break in your nose and they emit blood in a mist format.
And they found that pattern on the wallpaper. So they knew something had happened in the bedroom
and it was violent. NARRATOR: Their discovery contradicted Colin's claim that Mary had died after falling
down the stairs on her own. - This is a case of primary scene staging. So this is where someone has staged the crime scene
specifically with the intention of misleading the police investigation, because Colin has tried to set this
up to look like an accident. But now the evidence is showing that actually there was some sort of confrontation
at the top of the stairs. The blood spatter analysis is not aligning with Colin's tale of events.
NARRATOR: Investigators also discovered a vital clue in the duvet Mary was wrapped
in when emergency services first arrived on the scene following Colin's call. - Wrapped up in the duvet was a yellow towel
and the yellow towel had blood staining on it, which turned out to be Mary's blood.
And it was a light bulb moment because it sparked a thought of me about Henry Louis Wallace.
And at every scene of his murders, there was a towel involved. And the fact that he had looked up and researched him,
I believe this towel was involved in some way in the murder of Mary Gough. NARRATOR: Marie Cassidy, the state pathologist who had first
found evidence of ligature strangulation, also revisited the scene to look for more clues.
- Where's the ligature? What had been tied around Mary's neck? When I went up the stairs, we had a look around,
and in the bedroom there was nothing very much lying about. But there was a dressing gown hanging behind the door.
The belt was in place. It was through the loops, but it looked as if it had been stretched or something,
and there was some staining on it. And I immediately brought it to their attention.
And I said, well, that could have been used to strangle her. NARRATOR: The belt was sent to the forensic science
laboratory for testing. - They found Mary's blood on the belt. Given that the ligature was found in the bedroom
and Mary was found at the bottom of the stairs, I wondered whether or not she had been strangled upstairs
and then manhandled downstairs. She'd been literally dragged down to the bottom of the stairs and then left in a heap.
NARRATOR: It was further evidence that Mary had been murdered, most likely by her husband, Colin Whelan.
- Friends and family were in shock that Colin was in the frame for Mary's murder,
but Mary's mom Marie said that, on reflection, there had been a change in her behavior
in the lead up to this. And looking back as well, Mary's family said that on her wedding day she just didn't look happy.
PAT MARRY: Her mother said to me that she just felt there was something not right.
There was something amiss at the wedding. She just couldn't put her finger on it,
but Mary wasn't happy and things weren't right. - When the couple came back from their honeymoon,
her mom noticed that Mary was just different. She stopped getting her nails done
and wearing certain clothes because she said that Colin didn't like it. PAT MARRY: Her mother says she didn't wear her perfume that
she loved, and she said, "oh, Colin doesn't like that perfume and I don't wear it anymore."
AMBER HAQUE: Mary also stopped even inviting her mom around. And before this, Marie had practically lived in the house.
She had her own bedroom there. Yet something changed. And the week before she died, Mary's mom said that she
was calling her every night. It's as if she wanted to tell her something. HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND: All of this strikes as someone
who's potentially in a coercive, controlling relationship because now they're married.
Now he has an element of not only legal but sort of moral control over her. Manipulators and controlling individuals in relationships
do this on purpose. They do this to isolate their victim, and that way they have more control,
more say, over their life. And so for someone who is seeking that level of ownership
over another human being, these are very methodical steps that occur with that exact intention.
NARRATOR: Investigators still wanted to establish a motive, so they turned their attention back
to Colin's digital footprint. - Further searches of Collins computer revealed that he had
actually set up a website and was managing this website called extramaritalaffairs.com and he was
portraying himself as single and actively looking for a relationship. Police then found through this search
that Colin had met a woman in Wales, and they were having an online affair. PAT MARRY: Through communication, through emails,
they had sent a total of something like 123 greeting cards between each other. She had nicknamed him "Fuzzy Bear," and he nicknamed
her the "Little Welsh Rabbit." She was wanting to come over and meet him because she had fallen in love with him
and was in love with him as a result of this cyber affair. HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND: Colin going to the extent
to set up a whole website just to enable an extramarital online affair really goes to show the level of secrecy that he's hiding.
The ability that he clearly has to be able to manipulate those in his life because he's presenting as this loving,
doting husband externally. But the reality of his behavior is so far removed from that.
And I think this is him actually just testing the limits of what he can get away with.
NARRATOR: With the assistance of local police, detectives decided to visit his online girlfriend in Wales.
- The Welsh policeman said, "I have Irish police here. They want to speak to you and they want to talk to you about
a guy called Colin Whelan." "Oh, Colin. Yeah, I haven't heard about him in a couple of days.
I wonder, is he all right?" We said, "he's fine. His wife died." "Oh, I know that.
His wife died. He told me she was killed in a car accident in 1997." And I says, "no.
His wife died a week ago. And Colin is the suspect for murdering her." And with that, she just collapsed on the ground
like, you know. NARRATOR: Continuing their search for digital evidence, detectives found another potential motive
for Colin to have killed Mary. - An insurance policy document was found, and it showed that,
initially, he had taken out a policy on himself and Mary on the 15th of March, 2000, for the value
of 200,000 pounds. But two months after that, he upped the policy to 400,000 pounds, which was in excess of anything
that was reasonable. The insurance policy were taken out at a time after they had been engaged and before they got married.
And when you look at his internet history, going back before they married, where he was looking up
asphyxiation and strangulation, he obviously had it in his mind at that stage he was going to kill her
and he was going to cash in. Also, the internet history showed he was looking at expensive cars, holidays abroad.
He was looking at the high life if he got this money. So there is no doubt in our mind
he wanted to kill his wife for that money. It was definitely the big jigsaw piece that fitted in.
And to say, well, look, this is the motive. It was financial greed. We had him bang to rights.
We were quite happy. We had a very, very strong case. NARRATOR: On April 10, 2001, police drove to Colin's house.
- In the presence of his father, I arrested him on the suspicion of the murder of his wife, Mary.
NARRATOR: Colin Whelan was taken to Balbriggan Police Station, where the next day
he was questioned about the murder of his wife. - Colin didn't say anything. He kept his mouth shut.
Now we asked him, "well, can you explain how she ended up being strangled to death?"
And he said, "I can't." We asked him, "were you ashamed that you have killed your wife?"
Like, "have you anything to say?" And he broke down and he cried. But he said, "no comment."
He was psychopathic. That's the way I would look at it. He believed he was smarter and better than us,
but we were putting questions to him that were hard-hitting. If he sat there and said nothing, we couldn't care less.
We had the ace card at that stage. NARRATOR: Despite Colin invoking his right not
to comment, on April 11, 2001, police officially charged Colin Whelan with the murder of his wife,
but he would have to wait over two years to appear in court. - A trial date was set for October 13, 2003.
In Ireland, it's common to grant bail when there can be long delays, sometimes up
to two years, for murder trials, provided the accused isn't a flight risk and won't interfere with the prosecution.
Colin Whelan had strict bail conditions. He had to sign in every day at Balbriggan Garda Station.
He had to live with his family and his family had to pay a significant bail bond.
NARRATOR: For two years, Colin Whelan abided by his strict bail conditions, but seven months before he was due to stand trial,
everything changed. - In March 2003, his family came to the station to report Colin missing.
So we had to establish where is he. The family feared the worst and his car was missing.
And we had to establish where his car was and we had to look for him. NARRATOR: Colin's disappearance sparked a nationwide manhunt,
and on March 12, 2003, police had a breakthrough on the east coast of Ireland. - The police in Howth had been patrolling Howth Head, which
is a known area for people who commit suicide, and they observed a car there with keys in it.
And they thought it very suspicious and they contacted us and I went up immediately to Howth Head.
I looked at the car and the window was down on the passenger side. You could clearly see an empty bottle of gin.
NARRATOR: With no idea where Colin was, police turned to his cell phone activity to look for clues.
- His last phone call, we could establish, was to the Samaritans, which would be consistent
with someone, maybe in a mental state of disorder, that they would go and throw themselves over the cliffs.
NARRATOR: With evidence that Colin might have ended his life at the well-known suicide spot,
detectives triggered a search for his body. - We had a land and sea search carried out
by the Irish Coast Guard to see if his remains were on the cliffs or in the sea.
Those searches were negative. NARRATOR: Detectives soon suspected that Colin had staged the scene to suggest
that he was upset, drunk, and had taken his own life. PAT MARRY: I said to myself, "this is typical
Colin Whelan controlling." He's no more throwing himself off the cliff than the man in the moon.
And wherever he is, I don't know but I'm going to find him. - I think that this scene staging really
goes to actually show Colin's narcissistic tendencies, because this is someone who thinks that he's
so intelligent, he can outsmart the law, he can think of every preconceived idea and question
and answer them by setting up this scene. But actually, what he's not accounted for is that the perfect nature of the scene
actually raises questions in itself. NARRATOR: With Colin Whelan now a fugitive on the run,
Irish detectives launched an international manhunt. - When someone like this has vanished,
you have to engage Interpol and Europol to circulate the details of Colin Whelan
and what he's wanted for. And you have to step back and let that take its course.
It may take a short time, it may take a very long time, but you can do no more than that.
NARRATOR: One year on, Colin Whelan continued to evade justice. But in July 2004, around 16 months after he disappeared,
investigators received a tip off. - This was an unusual turn of events. NARRATOR: Colin had been spotted over 1,000 miles away
in the glamorous vacation town of Portals Nous on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
- He was working in a bar. The bar that he was working in was for customers who had bought yachts of 1+ million pounds.
So there wasn't going to be too many people from Balbriggan down wandering around there
parking their yacht like so. He felt relatively safe working there. NARRATOR: But Colin's identity was not as well protected
as he thought it was. PAT MARRY: A lady, a holidaymaker just happened to walk into the bar, and
she engaged with Colin Whelan while she was in the pub and he told her his name was Cian Sweeney.
And he gave her his name and wrote it down, signed it on the back of a business card for the pub
and said you'll get me here. When she returns to Ireland, the Gough family put in the papers the story about Colin Whelan
that he's missing for so long, had anybody seen him. And a picture of him. And she saw it, and she says, "Jesus,
that's Cian Sweeney, that's the guy I was talking to. That's him." And she contacted the station and he
was put in contact with her. She says that's the card he gave me, and he signed it.
I took a statement off her. I went back and compared it with Colin Whelan's signature
on the statement he made and the writing to me, and anyone who looked it, was the same.
So I said, this is our man and we needed to get him. NARRATOR: 16 months after Colin Whelan went on the run
from Irish police wanted for the murder of his wife Mary Gough, after first claiming
that she had a fatal fall down the stairs, he had finally been located. And Spanish police were poised to arrest him on behalf
of the Irish authorities. - On July the 10th in 2004, at 10:30 PM, the Spanish civil guard raided the bar
where Colin was working. - He was arrested on the warrant and he said, "you have the wrong guy.
My name is Cian Sweeney. You have the wrong guy." And they took him into custody and took his fingerprints.
And they said, "no, you're Colin Whelan, your fingerprints match." And he just put his hands up and he says,
"right, I'm Colin Whelan." NARRATOR: News of Colin's high-profile arrest spread quickly to Mary's family back home in Ireland.
- When Mary's family were told, they were shocked but so relieved. They broke down in tears on the phone.
Colin Whelan was finally being brought back from Spain to face justice for what he did to Mary.
NARRATOR: Detective Pat Marry traveled to Spain to bring Colin Whelan back to Ireland.
PAT MARRY: I flew out to Madrid to bring him back. I went down to the cell area and
about halfway down I looked into the right and there was Colin, standing there on his own,
and he had grown a beard at this stage. Now, I looked at him and he looked at me.
Our glances together spelled it out. He knew he was caught and I knew I caught him.
He was handcuffed and put on the plane and I was chatting to him, and he says, "you know, you're very lucky."
And I says, "why?" He said, "another week I was gone to Singapore and you would never get me."
- Whelan saying to the detective, you know, one more week and I'd have been in Singapore.
I think it kind of shows that he's seeing this as a bit of a game. It's almost like he's trying to flex, you know,
that this was a master plan, and he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you
and those meddling kids. You know, it's a bit gamified, and it's clearly someone not taking the severity of their actions
seriously, and certainly not showing any remorse for the death of Mary. NARRATOR: On April 11, 2005, four years
after Mary Gough's murder, Colin stood trial at Dublin's Central Criminal Court in one of the most publicized trials
in Irish criminal history. PAT MARRY: At the beginning of that trial, and before any jury were called,
he was arraigned by the court clerk, who read out the charge. He was asked, "did you, Colin Whelan, on the 1st of March,
killed Mary Gough?" and he looked round at me, and he just looked at me for a second or two, and he looked back up at the judge
and he said, "guilty." NARRATOR: Colin Whelan's admission of guilt stunned the packed courtroom.
- The Gough family were very happy. They were ecstatic. But I looked around at his family, the Whelan family.
They were gobsmacked. They could not believe what they heard. They were convinced that their Colin Whelan was innocent.
- There's a few reasons that Colin Whelan might be pleading guilty. It might be because he wants the shock and the attention
that this is going to give saying guilty at this moment. It might be because he knows that by entering a guilty plea,
you're more likely to get a slightly reduced sentence because you're saving the court a trial.
But it also might be simply because he knows the evidence is too strong against him,
and there's no way out. PAT MARRY: Colin plead guilty, in my mind, I have no doubt about this, that he didn't want his family
to know the details of what he actually did, and that would all come out during the course of a trial.
NARRATOR: As part of his guilty plea, Colin issued an apology letter to the Gough family.
- He explained he was sorry for what he had done, but it didn't wash with the Gough family.
It was seen more of an insult and a hurtful, paltry apology. And it was self-serving, I think, at the end of the day.
NARRATOR: On April 12, 2005, Colin Whelan was sentenced for the murder of Mary Gough.
Addressing Colin, the judge described Mary's murder as the most calculated and callous
killing he had ever encountered in his entire time in court. He then gave Colin Whelan a mandatory sentence
of life imprisonment. PAT MARRY: Colin had tried to fool his own family, the Gough family, the Gardas, and
everyone else that would listen to him, that everything was an accident. He intended to cash in his 400,000
and swan off to wherever he wanted to do whatever he wanted. And that's what he thought.
But unfortunately, his plan came to a sticky end. Smart and all, and as clever and all as he was,
he just wasn't as clever as the investigator. And I'm proud that it had a successful outcome
for the Gough family. HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND: This whole case, from start to finish, really seems
like Colin's attempt to assert control and power and show off his intelligence. All of it is him, I think, trying to really manipulate
those around him still. It's all still about how he's perceived by the public. And that sort of narcissism is a real common trait
that you see in people with psychopathy. - Mary Gough's death is unfortunately one of many hundreds that I've dealt with.
I've never forgotten it. And I've never forgotten her. And she's one of the ones that stays with me.
And there's a few who do. I think as a woman, you feel for women in those circumstances.
You think she was killed by the person that she loved and who told her that he loved her.
And I think how often women get into a situation like that and assume that they're going to have the happy ever after,
and then it all goes horribly wrong. It's just a tragedy. NARRATOR: Over two decades since her death,
Mary is still fondly remembered by those that knew her and those involved in the investigation.
- I can tell you from what I picked up about Mary, from her friends, from her family,
she was a beautiful, kind, caring person. She was very diligent, very intelligent.
And what happened was absolutely shocking. But victims shouldn't be forgot about, like, you know.
And as an investigator, you get to know the deceased even though you've never met them.
And I felt Mary was really a beautiful woman, a fine lady that suffered. And unfortunately, in this world,
there's too many women that go through that. [melancholy music] [theme music]

The horrifying case of Mary Gough, who is found dead at the foot of a staircase at the home she shares with her husband, Colin Whelan.

Pushed to Death tells the stories of people who tragically passed away after appearing to suffer a fatal fall in suspicious circumstances.

For More FilmRise Check Out Our Other Channels: FilmRise Television: https://www.youtube.com/⁨@FilmRiseTelevision⁩ FilmRise Movies: https://www.youtube.com/@FilmRiseMovies Highway to Heaven - Full Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@HighwaytoHeavenFullEpisodes

Brief Summary

Mary Gough was murdered by her husband Colin Whelan, who staged her death as an accident after a troubled marriage.

Key points

A Fatal Fall in Ireland. Mary Gough's life was tragically cut short just six months after her wedding.
Shocking Findings. Forensic pathologist Marie Cassidy determines that Mary Gough was murdered, not an accident.
The Start of an Investigation. Detective Sergeant Pat Marry begins investigating the suspicious circumstances surrounding Mary's death.
Colin's Cold Behavior. Colin Whelan's demeanor at Mary's funeral raises suspicions among investigators.
Chilling Internet Searches. Colin Whelan's disturbing online searches reveal premeditated intentions before Mary's death.
Colin's Staged Crime Scene. Evidence suggests Colin staged the scene to mislead investigators.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You may sharpen your pencil. We have a murder investigation.

Pat Marry, Detective Sergeant, after learning of the murder findings.

0:46WatchFeb 7, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.