A neighbourhood shop’s CCTV cameras saw murderer dad Sanjeev Chada “purchasing sweets” with his young boys only hours before he murdered them.
In a new RTÉ documentary called The Case I Can’t Forget, their bereaved mother Kathleen and the garda who investigated their deaths expose the tragic circumstances of the case.
Chada told Eoghan (10) and Ruairi (5) that they were going on a camping trip before strangling them in 2013, and that they were going to get coffee at a local store while he drove around with the bodies of the two boys in the boot.
The tragic event is now revealed from Kathleen’s and the investigating garda’s perspectives, who detailed the heartbreaking moment they realised their search for Eoghan and Ruairi would end in tragedy.
“At 7.30 p.m., they were spotted on CCTV in a shop establishment in Carlow. “You could see the two small boys going about purchasing candy and Tayto, and one buying a magazine,” Superintendent Martin Walker recounted.
“They appeared to be preparing for a trip.” “He had a hunch something was seriously wrong.”
Kathleen had been told that her ex-husband was taking the boys bowling on July 28, but they never returned.
Supt. Walker said that his fear heightened when he realised that the bowling alley closed at 6 p.m., the same time Eoghan and Ruairi left the house with their father.
“That was never his intention,” he explained. “It hinted at an ulterior motive.”
“He had a hunch something was badly wrong here.”
Chada admitted to stealing €56,000 from a community fund in the days before the boys went missing, causing the hunt to take on fresh urgency as an alert for his green Ford Focus was issued.
Garda then discovered CCTV footage of the boys happily purchasing candy and crisps in a nearby shop.
The disturbing photographs show Eoghan and Ruairi selecting treats with their father while another unknowing shopper browses further down the aisle.
Gardaí in Mayo were later dispatched to a car accident near Westport after a green Ford Focus collided with a stone wall.
Chada has just heard on the radio a Child Rescue Alert requesting Eoghan and Ruairi’s return home.
He contacted Kathleen via a phone borrowed from a stranger; he was stuck in the car but still alive.
“I received a phone call and answered it. “I knew it was Sanj on the other end of the call right away,” she explained.
“There’s been a crash,” he said, I believe. “Are the boys okay?” I wondered. then he answered, “no, they’re dead in the back.”
“I lost it at that point; I crumbled like I was falling into a black hole.” How do you inform someone that their children have been killed?
“All you can do is do it with as much care and empathy as you can find—and he didn’t even offer me that.”
Superintendent Gary Walsh detailed the horrific facts of the accident, in which a witness saw car seats in the rear of the truck.
“An accident occurred, and one [person] observed car seats.” One of the witnesses went to the boot, opened it, and discovered Eoghan and Ruairi.
Garda learned that Chada had murdered his two young boys in a laneway near Ballintubber Abbey.
“We now had our crime scene.” Sanjeev Chada killed his two children at this spot. We interviewed him, and he was quite. He originally revealed very little, but as time passed, he began to reveal more.
“When they didn’t go bowling, the boys inquired, and he said that they were going on a camping vacation.” They were undoubtedly happy in the car because they were going camping with their father.
“All along, Sanjeev attempted to convey the idea that the boys’ deaths were gentle.” But, based on the post-mortem findings, we knew that wasn’t the case.
“It was a more aggressive confrontation in the car.”
Chada had strangled the two children.
“He chose to play God, deciding that the children would be better off dead than living, and discovering he was a thief.”
Kathleen recalls her ex-murder husband’s trial as part of a documentary that will run on RTÉ One.
“A part of me thinks it would be better if he were insane, since it would provide an answer…
“My husband was insane, and he killed our two children, as opposed to my husband being evil and narcissistic, and he decided to take our two lovely sons’ lives for his own objectives.”
In October 2014, Chada was sentenced to life in prison.
Kathleen received a disturbing email that Chada had sent 18 months ago, six weeks after she buried her small children.
“In it, he said he, I, Eoghan, and Ruairi were all going to die. To put it another way, he had plotted a murder-suicide.
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