Garda killer Pearse McAuley found dead in Co Tyrone home

Convicted garda killer Pearse McAuley has been found dead at his home in Co Tyrone.

The body of McAuley, who was in his late 50s, was discovered at a property in Strabane on Monday.

He was sentenced to 14 years in jail for the manslaughter of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe, who was shot dead by an IRA gang during a raid on the post office in Adare, Co Limerick, in June 1996.

He was jailed after a notorious IRA gang shot dead Det Gda McCabe during a raid on the post office in Adare, in Co Limerick in June 1996.

Mr McCabe was in an unmarked garda patrol car, escorting a van delivering £80,000 (102,000 euro) to local post offices in Adare in June 1996, when the IRA gang struck.

He was shot about 15 times with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

His colleague, Detective Garda Ben O’Sullivan, was seriously injured in the shooting but survived.

McAuley was convicted of manslaughter in 1999 and was released from prison after serving 10 years.

Years before the killing, McAuley and his cellmate, Nessan Quinlivan, shot their way out of Brixton Prison in London as they awaited trial for conspiracy to murder brewery boss Charles Tidbury and for firearms and explosives offences.

Jail-breaker McAuley and IRA killer Kevin Walsh were the last of the five men jailed for the robbery to be released. They had served three-quarters of their 14-year sentences.

While McAuley was serving his sentence, Sinn Fein made an unsuccessful attempt to have him and others jailed for the garda killing to be released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

The move was resisted by the Irish Government.

In 2015, McAuley was sentenced to 12 years for stabbing his estranged wife, Pauline Tully, now a Sinn Fein TD, with a steak knife at her home on Christmas Eve in 2014.

The pair had married while McAuley was serving his 14-year sentence for the garda killing.

They met when Ms Tully, who was elected as a Sinn Fein councillor in 1999, visited McAuley at Castlerea Prison in Co Roscommon.

They became engaged in 2000.

He was temporarily released in 2003 to marry Ms Tully, a teacher at the time, in her home village of Kilnaleck, Co Cavan.

McAuley was finally freed in 2020.

A PSNI spokeswoman said on Tuesday: “Police are examining the circumstances surrounding the death of a man at a property in Abercorn Square in Strabane on Monday, 18 March.

“At present, the death is not believed to be suspicious.”