Murder-suicide of Cork family members raises suspicions that the attack was plotted by father and youngest son

CORK: Doubts are rising that the murder of three people in a house in Kanturk, Co. Cork, has been planned and executed. A father and two sons have been found dead in a murder-suicide case following a family quarrel in North Cork.

But Garda investigating the crime, has doubts as to whether the attack was planned. Such a suspicion arose after a long and detailed suicide note was found on the body of Diarmuid O’Sullivan (23). 

The note was found on Monday morning at the family home near Castlemagner while investigating the death of Diarmuid’s brother, Mark (26). Garda found the bodies of Diarmuid and his father, Tadhg (59), in a field.

The note, which was stuck in Diarmuid’s thigh, reveals that Diarmuid and his father were planning to shoot Mark after a grievance they had over a proposal to divide the family’s 115-acre farm.

The actual reasons are not known except for Diarmuid O’Sullivan, and his father felt aggrieved at the way the farm was to be divided. Garda is investigating whether father, Tadhg and son, Diarmuid had been planning for several days.

At around 6:40 a.m. on Monday, Tadhg’s wife, Ms. O’Sullivan, woke up to hear gunshots and saw Mark being shot in his bed. The Garda group arrived at the scene around 7.30 am after the incident was reported.

When Ms. O’Sullivan informed the incident to a neighbour, he told the garda that he had heard two gun shots some time earlier. Garda suspects that these shots may have been made by Mr. Tadhg and his son Diarmuid, who took their own lives near a fairy fort, about four fields from the house.

Garda, though, has not yet been able to know when the note found on Diarmuid O’Sullivan’s dead body was written.