Graham Dwyer was convicted last month of stabbing Elaine O’Hara to death in Dublin mountains and concealing her body

An Irish architect obsessed with stabbing women during sex acts has been handed a mandatory life sentence at Dublin high court over a murder that has both repelled and fascinated Ireland.

The trial of Graham Dwyer for the killing his “sex slave”, Elaine O’Hara, has shone a light on the dark underworld of the Republic’s violent sadomasochistic scene.



Dwyer was convicted last month of luring O’Hara to the Dublin mountains on 22 August 2012, stabbing her to death and then concealing her body. The evidence was among the most graphic and disturbing heard by a jury in Ireland.

During a two-month trial, jurors were shown a series of disturbing videos of the 42-year-old architect stabbing O’Hara while she was tied up. In some videos, she was heard begging him to “please stop.”



O’Hara was not the only woman filmed by Dwyer, who sometimes simulated stabbing those he tied up. The Garda Siochana is now attempting to track down the other women, depicted by Dwyer as his “slaves”. Some did not know they were being filmed because they were blindfolded.



O’Hara emerged during the trial as a deeply troubled, lonely woman who yearned for a baby but also had severe mental health issues – vulnerable quarry for a dangerous predator on S&M websites such as Dwyer.



The court heard a series of text messages from the start of their relationship in 2007 between O’Hara, 36, and Dwyer in which he was referred to as “Master” or “Sir” and her as “Slave”. Overall there were 2,600 text messages filled with rape and murder fantasies.



When O’Hara was hospitalised after a suicide attempt in August 2012, one of Dwyer’s text messages read: “You must be punished for trying to kill yourself without me.”



And when she pleaded with Dwyer to make her pregnant, he replied in another text trying to persuade her to help him kill another woman. “Ok, a life for a life. Help me take one and I will give you one,” he texted her.



Dwyer visited an alternative sexual underground website to fulfil his deep-seated fantasies to spill women’s blood during sex acts. He came across O’Hara, who had a history of self harm. Early on in their master-slave relationship, Dwyer told O’Hara via another mobile phone text: “My urge to rape, stab, kill is huge. You have to help me control or satisfy it.”



In September 2013 – more than a year after O’Hara had gone missing – a dog-walker discovered her bodyat Kilakee in the Dublin mountains. Two days later, her bags and mobile phones were found at a reservoir in Roundwood in nearby Co Wicklow where Dwyer had dumped them.



No murder weapon was recovered from either scene and the autopsy of the victim could not establish exactly how she died. There was no direct DNA evidence linking Dwyer to these two sites. Police identified Dwyer as the killer after retrieving text messages and videos from the mobile phones.

Dwyer always maintained the facade of being a respectable, successful professional and family man. His main hobby outside work at a Dublin architects’ office was flying model aeroplanes.



Although Dwyer’s wife and fellow architect, Gemma, had no idea about her husband’s alternative lifestyle and fetish fantasies, a figure from his past did – his ex-girlfriend and mother of his first child, Emer McShea. She gave evidence in court that Dwyer told her in the early 1990s of his fantasies about stabbing women while having sex with them.



McShea told the trial that Dwyer’s fantasies got as far as leaving a kitchen knife by their pillows when they were in bed having sex.

Following Dwyer’s conviction, detectives in Dublin are examining a series of other unsolved murders involving fatal stabbings. According to a Garda source, they include the death of 17-year-old schoolgirl Raonaid Murray. She was killed 14 years ago after being attacked in Glenageary, south Dublin after returning from a night out with friends in the pub. No one has ever been convicted of her killing.



A team of detectives seconded to re-open the the file is looking at the texts between Dwyer and O’Hara. In one exchange, Dwyer pointed that no one had been charged and convicted with Murray’s murder after O’Hara expressed fears about being caught setting up a victim for Dwyer.



Since being found guilty, Dwyer has been on suicide watch in prison. It is likely that he will appeal against his conviction. Although his brothers and parents attended court throughout the trial, Dwyer no longer sees his wife or their two children.

The court heard a victim impact statement from O’Hara’s family which said: “[It was] heartbreaking for us to listen to the texts Elaine received from a depraved and diseased mind. The manipulation of her vulnerability was apparent and when she tried to resist, she was reined back in.

“We can hear her voice in those texts, just wanting to be loved. Hearing the contents of the videos will haunt us forever … This is our life sentence. For us, there is no parole.”



Judge Tony Hunt said the mandatory life sentence was richly deserved in this case.

