The terrifying pre-meditated murder of Ana Kriegel by two 13-year-old boys has set a new precedent as one of the most shocking murders in the nation’s living memory.
There has been a considerable amount of analysis and debate around why two apparently well-reared children with no history of psychological or developmental disorders could perpetrate such a depraved crime.
In doing so, they became the youngest offenders ever to be convicted of murder in this State.
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The popular belief is that a crime of this magnitude, where a child has murdered another in deeply disturbing circumstances, has not happened before. But it has.
One has to go back 46 years, before the multimedia age, to find a comparable true-life horror story that was deemed so shocking and incomprehensible at the time that it was mostly airbrushed from history.
In June 1973, a 16-year-old Dublin schoolboy called Lorcan Bale, who had developed an unhealthy fascination with witchcraft, murdered his seven-year-old neighbour John Horgan in a macabre satanic ritual.
Armed with a club, rope and a sack, Bale lured the child into open fields at the back of the estate on the pretence of catching rabbits. John Horgan was never seen alive again.
Some hours later, gardaí would discover the child’s naked body tied to the rafters of Bale’s home in the shape of a crucifixion, beside a makeshift altar where they found candles, a chalice, eucharists and books about the occult.
A post-mortem determined that death had been due to severe blunt-force trauma to the head, which Bale had inflicted with the club before stuffing the child’s body into the sack and later moving it to his secret space in the attic.
The case was investigated by officers from Lucan station, which was also the base for the Ana Kriegel murder investigation.
And just like in the case of their colleagues 45 years later, their professional instincts drew them to Lorcan Bale – although they would later admit that they could not conceive that a child could carry out such a cold-blooded, sadistic murder.
When they told Bale that they intended searching his house “from the slates to the cellar”, the teenager calmly confessed.
The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector John Reynolds, recalled the moment in his statement:
“Bale paused for a moment and turned away, then he said, ‘I will show you’. He turned towards the house and said: ‘It is in the attic’.”
After making the gruesome discovery, gardaí took Bale to Lucan station in the company of his mother where he sat and dictated a three-page statement in which he described in detail how he planned and carried out the murder.
At the time, the investigating gardaí were left speechless by the teenager’s composed and detached manner – such a case had never been encountered before.
His confession was comprehensive and included all the corroboration needed to sustain a conviction, yet he never once offered any kind of explanation or motive.
His statement began with him describing coming home in the afternoon after his exam.
“I had a cup of coffee and I went to my room,” he said. “I rested there for about an hour.
“While I was there, I was considering getting John, that is John Horgan, the seven-year-old boy who lives next door. I planned how I would do it, meaning how I would kill him and hide his body.”
The charging of Lorcan Bale received no more than a few paragraphs in the newspapers at the time and there were no details given about how the little boy had died.
The State did not seem anxious to find an explanation for the atrocity and wanted it disposed of as quickly as possible.
Five months later, the teenager pleaded guilty to murder in the Central Criminal Court and was sentenced to life. He was sent to St Patrick’s Institution for Young Offenders.
An American priest, who specialised in the occult, later came to Ireland to visit Bale in prison and was accompanied by a garda and a prison officer.
According to the eye witnesses, after a short while alone in the cell with Bale, the priest ran out shocked and deeply disturbed. He claimed that he had seen the devil and left the prison.
The shocking case of the satanic teenage killer came to public light only in 2011 when former RTÉ producer David Malone was researching a book about the case. He discovered that, in the rush to forget the horror, a formal inquest into John Horgan’s death had never taken place.
After his release from prison, Lorcan Bale moved to live in London and has never come to the attention of the police since.
In 2011, I learned that he had become a leading figure in the Anglican Church in upmarket Kensington, where he also worked as an environmental service manager.
But despite the passage of 37 years and his finding God, Bale refused to make any comment.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Paul Williams: 'Atrocity of teen killing a child has happened here before – but was swept under the carpet'
Paul Williams: 'Atrocity of teen killing a child has happened here before – but was swept under the carpet'
The terrifying pre-meditated murder of Ana Kriegel by two 13-year-old boys has set a new precedent as one of the most shocking murders in the nation’s living memory.
There has been a considerable amount of analysis and debate around why two apparently well-reared children with no history of psychological or developmental disorders could perpetrate such a depraved crime.
In doing so, they became the youngest offenders ever to be convicted of murder in this State.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
The popular belief is that a crime of this magnitude, where a child has murdered another in deeply disturbing circumstances, has not happened before. But it has.
One has to go back 46 years, before the multimedia age, to find a comparable true-life horror story that was deemed so shocking and incomprehensible at the time that it was mostly airbrushed from history.
In June 1973, a 16-year-old Dublin schoolboy called Lorcan Bale, who had developed an unhealthy fascination with witchcraft, murdered his seven-year-old neighbour John Horgan in a macabre satanic ritual.
Armed with a club, rope and a sack, Bale lured the child into open fields at the back of the estate on the pretence of catching rabbits. John Horgan was never seen alive again.
Some hours later, gardaí would discover the child’s naked body tied to the rafters of Bale’s home in the shape of a crucifixion, beside a makeshift altar where they found candles, a chalice, eucharists and books about the occult.
A post-mortem determined that death had been due to severe blunt-force trauma to the head, which Bale had inflicted with the club before stuffing the child’s body into the sack and later moving it to his secret space in the attic.
The case was investigated by officers from Lucan station, which was also the base for the Ana Kriegel murder investigation.
And just like in the case of their colleagues 45 years later, their professional instincts drew them to Lorcan Bale – although they would later admit that they could not conceive that a child could carry out such a cold-blooded, sadistic murder.
When they told Bale that they intended searching his house “from the slates to the cellar”, the teenager calmly confessed.
The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector John Reynolds, recalled the moment in his statement:
“Bale paused for a moment and turned away, then he said, ‘I will show you’. He turned towards the house and said: ‘It is in the attic’.”
After making the gruesome discovery, gardaí took Bale to Lucan station in the company of his mother where he sat and dictated a three-page statement in which he described in detail how he planned and carried out the murder.
At the time, the investigating gardaí were left speechless by the teenager’s composed and detached manner – such a case had never been encountered before.
His confession was comprehensive and included all the corroboration needed to sustain a conviction, yet he never once offered any kind of explanation or motive.
His statement began with him describing coming home in the afternoon after his exam.
“I had a cup of coffee and I went to my room,” he said. “I rested there for about an hour.
“While I was there, I was considering getting John, that is John Horgan, the seven-year-old boy who lives next door. I planned how I would do it, meaning how I would kill him and hide his body.”
The charging of Lorcan Bale received no more than a few paragraphs in the newspapers at the time and there were no details given about how the little boy had died.
The State did not seem anxious to find an explanation for the atrocity and wanted it disposed of as quickly as possible.
Five months later, the teenager pleaded guilty to murder in the Central Criminal Court and was sentenced to life. He was sent to St Patrick’s Institution for Young Offenders.
An American priest, who specialised in the occult, later came to Ireland to visit Bale in prison and was accompanied by a garda and a prison officer.
According to the eye witnesses, after a short while alone in the cell with Bale, the priest ran out shocked and deeply disturbed. He claimed that he had seen the devil and left the prison.
The shocking case of the satanic teenage killer came to public light only in 2011 when former RTÉ producer David Malone was researching a book about the case. He discovered that, in the rush to forget the horror, a formal inquest into John Horgan’s death had never taken place.
After his release from prison, Lorcan Bale moved to live in London and has never come to the attention of the police since.
In 2011, I learned that he had become a leading figure in the Anglican Church in upmarket Kensington, where he also worked as an environmental service manager.
But despite the passage of 37 years and his finding God, Bale refused to make any comment.
Source: Read Full Article