They Thought They Were Close. The 2023 Breakthrough Sent Them Back to Square One. | Deely Pt. 2

For 23 years, investigators and the public assumed the dark figure captured walking behind Trevor Deely on Haddington Road — 34 seconds after Trevor passed the camera — was the same man who had waited outside his office for 34 minutes in the rain. In December 2023, that assumption was definitively disproved.

Enhanced CCTV analysis, using the same UK-based company that had processed the footage in 2016, finally confirmed that the Haddington Road figure was a different person entirely — someone who had given a statement to the Garda in the original 2000 investigation. The footage had been too poor to confirm his identity at the time. The 2023 enhancement resolved it. He wasn't following Trevor. There was nothing sinister about his movements.

Trevor's brother Mark described it as a "bittersweet moment" — and said it put investigators "nearly straight back to square one."

The man in black who spoke to Trevor at the back gate of his office at 3:35 AM remains unidentified. That person — whoever they are — is still the central unresolved thread in this case. The Garda believes he may hold information critical to understanding what happened to Trevor. He may not know that. They are asking him to come forward.

Part 2 also covers the Garda's working theory: two separate informants, in 2017 and 2019, told investigators that Trevor was accidentally shot by a known Dublin criminal and that his body was concealed in the Chapelizod area, roughly five and a half miles from where he was last seen. In August 2017, Garda sealed off a three-acre site in Chapelizod and searched for six weeks. They found a gun and a quantity of drugs. Neither was connected to Trevor. The search ended in September 2017 without finding him.

Twenty-six years later, Trevor Deely has never been found. The man in black has never been identified. And the case remains open.

This episode also covers the lasting impact of Trevor's disappearance on how Ireland handles missing persons — the Garda National Missing Persons Unit, CCTV preservation protocols, and Ireland's national Missing Persons Day — changes driven in large part by the failures exposed in those first four days of Trevor's investigation.

ECHO 1953 - THE HOLLIS FILES, BOOK ONE
Available now on Amazon - Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.
Order your copy today.

THE HALLS OF MEDIOCRITY
Sports. True crime. Athletes who had everything and threw it away.
New episodes every Tuesday.
Find us wherever you get your podcasts.

MIDNIGHT MYSTERY ARCHIVE
True crime. Cold cases. Every Friday.
midnightmysteryarchive.com | Substack | Patreon

Follow us: X | Facebook Group

Thanks to our monthly supporters

• jared K
• Lisa Mooney
• Jamie Mcconnell

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★