Three band members were taken from their tour bus and shot . The scene of the Miami Showband killings in County Down, Northern Ireland, on 31 July 1975. They also discovered a stolen white Ford Escort registration number 4933 LZ,[43] which had been left behind by the gunmen, along with two guns, ammunition, green UDR berets and a pair of glasses later traced to James McDowell, the gunman who had allegedly ordered the shootings. Despite his conversion to Christianity, Somerville remained virulently anti-Catholic and he strongly opposed the Good Friday Agreement. [101], A Netflix documentary titled ReMastered: The Miami Showband Massacre was released 22 March 2019, highlighting the efforts of Steve Travers to track down who authorized the attack, for what purposes, and to get an admission of culpability.[102][103]. [58] He was later shot dead in Portadown on 25 January 1976, allegedly by Jackson for having informed the RUC about Thomas Crozier's participation in the attack. Travers had described the English-accented man as having been of normal height and thought he had fair hair, but was not certain. Asked whether he had anything valuable inside the case, Travers replied no. This had meant the possible withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland. [79] and that none of the perpetrators ever offered him an apology. The emergence of discos later in the decade meant that ballrooms were converted into nightclubs, leaving the showbands with few venues available in which to perform. 28 Serial Killer Crime Scene Photos From Famous Murderers - All That's Aaron Carter 's mother believes he was the victim of a crime, not an overdose -- so, she's made the tough decision to let the . [23], According to the Irish Times, at the height of Irish showbands' popularity (from the 1950s to the 1970s), up to as many as 700 bands travelled to venues all over Ireland on a nightly basis.[24]. Sometimes the showbands played traditional Irish music at their performances. Two of the gunmen were attempting to plant a time bomb on the vehicle, when it prematurely exploded and killed them. It confirmed that Jackson was linked to the attack by fingerprints. It took place on the A1 road at Buskhill in County Down, Northern Ireland. When they agreed he placed it on the ground, opened its case and then went back into line; however this time he stood first in the line-up closest to the minibus when previously he had been third. Mafia Death Scene Photos - The NCS - National Crime Syndicate The UVF man, who identified himself only as "the Craftsman", apologised to Travers for the attack, and explained that the UVF gunmen shot the band because they "had panicked" that night. [19], The 1975 line-up comprised four Catholics and two Protestants. The scene of the Miami Showband Killings on the A1 road at Buskhill in County Down, Northern Ireland, 31st July 1975. I was given a sub-machine gun but I had never fired it. Medical examiner cries as graphic autopsy photos of Cherish Perrywinkle Updated / Monday, 13 Dec 2021 22:28. "Robin Jackson and John Somerville had been very close friends since joining the Mid-Ulster UVF. His leadership was endorsed by the UVF's leader Gusty Spence. "After the explosion, the red mist came down and I went mad with a machine-gun," he once told a fellow loyalist prisoner. [81] Neill's car was one of those allegedly used in the Buskhill attack. It also devastated the burgeoning live music scene in Northern Ireland.. [4][22] McAlea made his way up the embankment to the main road where he hitched a lift to alert the RUC at their barracks in Newry. [68] During the trial, Des McAlea had received death threats which made him fear for the safety of his family; this caused him to eventually leave Northern Ireland. Five members of the Dublin-based band were travelling home after a performance at the Castle Ballroom in Banbridge, County Down, on Thursday 31 July 1975. The two men were found shot dead nearby. [7] At the time of the attack the Mid-Ulster Brigade was commanded by Robin Jackson, also known as "The Jackal". How are things? [100] According to the report, Jackson had claimed during police interrogations that after the shootings, a senior RUC officer had advised him to "lie low". [44], McDowell's statement of admission was published in David McKittrick's book Lost Lives:[44]. Tests done on the glasses, which were eventually traced back to McDowell, revealed that the lenses were of a prescription worn by just 1 in 500,000 of the population. [5], UK Home Secretary Roy Jenkins introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which gave the government unprecedented powers against the liberty of individuals in the United Kingdom in peacetime. Jackson was convinced Hanna was a Special Branch informer and he feared he may spill details of the imminent Miami attack to his RUC handler. The attack was carried out by loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and took place while the group, a popular cabaret band, were travelling home to Dublin after a performance. Originally called the Downbeats Quartet, the Miami Showband was reformed in 1962 by rock promoter Tom Doherty, who gave them their new name. The scene of the Miami Showband Killings on the A1 road at Buskhill in County Down, Northern Ireland, 31st July 1975. [88], Travers travelled to Belfast in 2006 for a secret meeting with the second-in-command of the UVF's Brigade Staff, in an attempt to come to terms with the killing of his former colleagues and friends. Note: Initially it was believed that the bomb had been placed in the rear of the minibus and that the closure of the door had triggered the blast. He then drove to a lay-by on the Newry-Banbridge dual carriageway and met up with another five men, who were all wearing British Army uniforms. While the Miami is synonymous, for many, with the atrocity, the musical tells the whole story of the band, Lynch says, from when it re-formed in 1967, and Fran O'Toole and Des Lee first joined . The meeting was arranged by Rev. Everybody was respectful to Brian". [27], After McCoy told them they were the Miami Showband, Thomas Crozier (who had a notebook) asked the band members for their names and addresses, while the others bantered with them about the success of their performance that night and playfully asking which one was Dickie Rock. And two years later when he was scooped in an RUC raid in Dungannon on September 26, 1980, he made a detailed confession outlining his involvement in numerous UVF murders. Unlike Jackson, Somerville was arrested in the wake of the Miami atrocity, but he refused to make a statement and was released without charge. As Maguire continued ahead, up the by-pass toward Newry, he noticed a blue Triumph 2000 pulling-out from where it had been parked in a lay-by. Some wounds are a deep red, with blood vessels clearly visible; others expose underlying tissue. [53] The three convicted UVF men, although admitting to having been at the scene, denied having shot anyone. Mit unserem einfachen Abonnement erhalten Sie Zugriff auf die besten Inhalte von Getty Images. I only came into it because of my UDR connection and the fact that I had a uniform. [22] Near the junction with Buskhill Road they were flagged down by armed men dressed in British Army uniforms waving a red torch in a circular motion. On April 17, 1975, Somerville and Jackson blew up a Catholic-owned cottage which was being renovated at Killyliss between Dungannon and Ballygawley. Three band members were shot dead by loyalist gunmen. [37][38] This might have resulted in the Irish authorities enforcing tighter controls over the border, thus restricting IRA operations. Weir's affidavit implicating Robin Jackson in a number of attacks including the 1974 Dublin bombings was published in the 2003 Barron Report; the findings of an official investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Judge Henry Barron. [34], Thomas Crozier recounted that on the night of the killings, he had driven to the grounds of a school in Lurgan where he had picked up two men. Concerned they might be damaged, McAlea first approached the two gunmen and asked if he could remove his saxophone. The band is remembered in the song "The Miami" by English folk singer-songwriter Jez Lowe on his album Jack Commons Anthem. But the Sunday World has also learned that on January 4 1976, Jackson was accompanied by John Somerville when he burst into the home of the O'Dowd family at Ballyduggan, near Gilford, shooting three of them dead. Travers later recalled hearing one of the departing gunmen tell his comrade who had kicked McCoy's body to make sure he was not alive: "Come on, those bastards are dead. 1,453 Vintage Crime Scene Photos Premium High Res Photos - Getty Images [85], The Pat Finucane Centre has named the Miami Showband killings as one of the 87 violent attacks perpetrated by the Glenanne gang against the Irish nationalist community in the 1970s. It would appear that the UVF patrol surprised members of a terrorist organisation transferring weapons to the Miami Showband minibus and that an explosive device of some description was being carried by the Showband for an unlawful purpose. The Provisional IRA carried out the bombing of two pubs in the English city of Birmingham the following November, resulting in 21 deaths. Griffin based her theory on the nine bullets that were fired from a Luger into McCoy's body and that Jackson's fingerprints were found on the silencer used for a Luger. And despite being married with a family, he immersed himself in loyalist terrorism. The three men were sent to serve their sentence in the Maze Prison, on the outskirts of Lisburn. Martin Dillon suggested in The Dirty War that at least five serving UDR soldiers were present at the checkpoint. [62] However, police have blamed the IRA. The RUC suggested the IRA had meant to attack a police minibus in revenge for the Miami killings, but had mistakenly attacked a civilian minibus instead. "Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights, Sub-Committee on the Barron Report", "The Miami Showband Massacre, 1975: A Survivor's Search for the Truth", "Miami Showband Massacre: Involvement of UVF Man Robin Jackson". On 15 October 1976, Crozier and McDowell both received life sentences for the Miami Showband murders. RM G4PYFC - Miami Showband massacre RM EC8F8C - London, UK. "John said the cops told him there was no need for him to go to prison. . Both men had pleaded for their lives before they were shot; one had cried out, "Please don't shoot me don't kill me". I did what I did. They subsequently set up a roadblock with "all the trappings of a regular military checkpoint". 50 True-Crime Documentaries on Netflix | 2023 . He . [19], In 1994, Eric Smyth, a former UDR member and the husband of Brian McCoy's sister, Sheila, was killed by the IRA. [55] Although ballistic testing had linked the Luger (for which the silencer had been specifically made) to the Miami Showband attack, Jackson was never questioned about the killings after his fingerprints had been discovered on the silencer, and the Miami inquiry team were never informed about these developments. [72][73] Surviving band members Stephen Travers and Des McAlea told police and later testified in court that a British Army officer with a "crisp, clipped English accent" oversaw the attack, the implication being that this was Nairac. [6] The existence of these talks led unionists to believe that they were about to be abandoned by the British government and forced into a united Ireland; as a result, the loyalist paramilitary groups reacted with a violence that, combined with the tit-for-tat retaliations from the IRA (despite their ceasefire), made 1975 one of the "bloodiest years of the conflict". DISC 2 REPLACEMENT ONLY CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Miami 7th Season It had been travelling from Banbridge to Bleary with nine people on board; all were Catholics and most had been returning from a regular bingo session. Aaron Carter's mom releases pictures of 'death scene' bathroom in bid He also survived by remaining silent, pretending he was dead. [62] One report says it was stopped at a fake British Army checkpoint. He also provides other alibis for Nairac precluding his presence at the scenes of both the John Francis Green killing and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Psychopath mass killer who shot Miami Showband singer 22 times in the But it went nowhere when a senior RUC officer advised the UVF leader to lie low for a while. He was given a total of four life sentences (three for the murders of the Miami Showband members and one for the Falls murder) on 9 November 1981; he had pleaded not guilty. [31] Travers described McCoy as a "sophisticated, father-type figure. Just after the arrival of this mysterious soldier, McCoy nudged Travers, who was standing beside him, and reassured him by saying "Don't worry Stephen, this is British Army". Using self-loading rifles and sub-machine guns, the patrol shot back, killing three of their attackers and wounding another. [22], According to Peter Taylor, the Provisional IRA's gun and bomb attack on the loyalist Bayardo Bar in Belfast's Shankill Road on 13 August was in retaliation for the Miami Showband ambush. She furthermore opined that Jackson was the man Travers saw kicking McCoy's body to make sure he was dead. In the ensuing confusion the UVF men opened fire on the band, killing three and wounding two. [51] An independent panel of inquiry commissioned by the Pat Finucane Centre has established that among the weapons actually used in the killings were two Sterling submachine guns and a 9mm Luger pistol serial no. Survivor of Miami Showband massacre in North warns Troubles set to He also took part in fatal bomb attacks at Kay's Tavern in Dundalk and Donnelly's Bar at Silverbridge, south Armagh. [3] The UVF would be once more banned by the British government on 3 October 1975. In January 2015, he was found dead in his Shankill Road flat. One of the first famous crime scene photos was taken on May 5, 1903, in the home of a Parisian woman named Madame Debeinche who had been murdered. "ReMastered: The Miami Showband . The Story With thanks to Jimmy Harte, Anto Long and Caroline Allen Dickie's Miami (1962-1972) Few bands in Ireland have had as prolific, and tragic, a history as the Miami. When McCoy refused, Jackson then hatched his plan to murder McCoy and his bandmates in retaliation for what he viewed as having betrayed the loyalist cause, even macabrely choosing Buskhill as the ambush site due to its similarity to Bus-kill. [2], The UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade operated mainly around the Portadown and Lurgan areas. 1,913 Vintage Crime Scene Premium High Res Photos
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