Gardaí in Dublin are likely to investigate a potential link between paedophile radio host Eamon Cooke and some of the country’s oldest unsolved missing children cases.
“Captain” Eamonn Cooke, who died earlier this month aged 79, was the former owner of pirate radio station Radio Dublin.
He is suspected of killing Philip Cairns, a 13-year-old schoolboy who disappeared on his way back to school after eating his lunch at home in Rathfarnham, South Dublin, in October 1986, after a woman Gardaí believe to be a credible witness came forward claiming that she was with Cooke on the day the child went missing.
The woman, who claimed she saw Philip Cairns unconscious and bleeding, having been hit by a blunt instrument, at Cooke’s radio studio, said she fainted directly afterwards and woke up in the disgraced DJ’s car.
Although he was jailed in 2007 for ten years after being convicted of sexually assaulting girls in the 1970s (he was released into hospice care when his health deteriorated), Cooke is believed to have abused hundreds of Irish children in the years previously.
It’s believed the predator was part of a paedophile ring that operated in the area at the time.
According to new reports, detectives may now re-examine cold cases to ascertain whether Cooke was in the area when other children went missing.
Gardaí are hoping the revived interest in the 30-year-old case will encourage further witnesses to come forward.
