The Dublin BDSM Murder of Elaine O’Hara

There are a number of disturbing messages exchanged between Elaine O'Hara, a vulnerable woman with emotional and mental health issues, and her murderer in the years that proceeded her disappearance in late August 2012.

Elaine had intended to go to the Tall Ships Festival in Dublin with her father's partner, Sheila Hawkins, on the day following her disappearance. She had volunteered to work the festival and seemed excited about it after a three-week stint in the hospital where she'd been undergoing psychiatric care related to her depression.

Concern first arose when Elaine failed to turn up where she was intended to meet Sheila the following morning. Contacting Elaine's father, Frank, Sheila was assured by him that it was likely fine, but she went by Elaine's house anyway. There was no answer, so she left for work.

Elaine had only been released from care the day before. She had discussed the Tall Ships Festival with him over lunch and then they had paid an emotional visit to her mother's grave, finally parting at about four p.m. When Sheila told Frank that Elaine at not turned up to meet her, he was concerned about her well-being due to her mental health issues, but not shocked. Though he had felt she was excited to go, it was still no surprise to him that she might have changed her mind if her mental health faltered.

Still, Frank had been so concerned that he had checked on her later in the afternoon, even using his key to enter for a welfare check when he got no answer. Everything seemed to be in order other than his noting that her iPhone was there. Thinking she might have simply forgotten it; he dismissed it and went home.

Elaine had been troubled for much of her life due to bullying and losing a friend in a traffic accident. In fact, her distress over her friend had led her to attempt suicide. Her struggles with depression continued, reaching a peak again when her mother died in 2002.

By the following year, her mental health had greatly improved, but this was once again set back by the death of her long-time psychiatrist in 2007. Thus, Elaine's recent stay in the hospital was just the latest episode in more than a dozen stays for depression and suicidal tendencies.

Diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder, Elaine was said to have the emotional maturity of a fifteen-year-old. Her therapist had made notes that she had developed an interest in BDSM-related activities such as restraint, imprisonment, and punishment. Her mental condition, along with asthma, diabetes and dyslexia led to her being prescribed medications that included anti-depressants and tranquilizers which made her sleepy and lethargic a great deal of the time.

Her new psychiatrist, Dr. Murphy, had reduced her medications considerably and felt that Elaine was finally ready for some improvement in her life, a belief fortified with her desire to volunteer at the Tall Ships Festival the week she was released. Still, her disappearance after having been released and spent some time with her father was a cause for concern giving her history. Her father continued to try to check on her, with no success.

After the following day had passed with no response, Frank and Sheila visited Elaine's apartment again. This time, they noted that her purse was there, not something that had changed, but something Frank believes he just overlooked the first time he had checked on his daughter. During their visit, Sheila found a latex bondage suit and mask hidden within the laundry basket, but did not mention it to Frank, not wanting to upset him.

Frank checked the hospital, in case Elaine had returned, while his brother in law, Mark went to see if she had returned to her mother's grave for a visit. It was there that he found Elaine's car. With help from roadside assistance, the family gathered and searched her car for clues. The only things that seemed truly out of the ordinary were that she wasn't anywhere near it and there was a charger for a phone other than the one she was known to carry.

The fact that the cemetery was close to the sea was of more concern for Frank, so the family returned to her apartment again. In addition to the items previously found, they found all of her medications and some printed pages about hunting knives, Killakee Forest and Vartry Reservoir - both near where her car had been found. It was also noted that she had a notebook with web addresses for fetish sites, which was not surprising given the fascination for such things she had expressed since her teens.

With still no word from Elaine and what facts he knew, Frank filed a report at the Garda station the following morning. A search began immediately of the apartment, the car, and the areas near the cemetery where it was found parked, including the coastline. Aerial searches were intended, but poor weather prevented them from taking place.

The initial investigation revealed that the last sighting of Elaine was just after 5 p.m. on the 22nd, less than an hour after she had returned home from her outing with her father that day. In her hand, she carried a flip phone.

Returning to the area where her car was found, the police were able to locate a witness who could place Elaine in the park at 5:45 based on a running app he used which tracked his movements. He said she had asked him for directions to a footbridge and that she seemed a bit out of sorts. He later saw her on the other side of the footbridge, so could verify she had found it and crossed. That is the last time anyone was known to have seen her.

After more searching of the beach, the Garda and the family concluded that Elaine had taken her own life and accepted that as truth, a belief that remained unchanged for the year that followed. The family continued to look for her body on their own, wanting to put her to rest but were unsuccessful in any of their searches.

The summer of 2013 changed everything.

The heat of that summer dropped the water levels in Vartry Reservoir from twenty feet to a little more than one foot. In September, a pair of brothers were fishing when they noticed something in the water. When they fished it out, they discovered it was assorted BDSM paraphernalia - handcuffs, clothing, a ball gag, and restraints.

At first, they just found it amusing, but after some thought, one of the brothers began to feel there was something more sinister about it. He retrieved the items and took them to a local Garda station, where the receiving officer logged them in as evidence of what he could only assume was some unreported crime.

He considered that someone disposing of such items would have just tossed them in the trash rather than hiking them out to the reservoir to throw them in. So, the following day, he went to investigate further. Though high winds prevented him from achieving any success on this first attempt, he returned again to find additional items - more handcuffs, an inhaler, and a set of keys with a Dunne Stores loyalty card attached.

On August 16, he learned from Dunne Stores that the cards belonged to Elaine O'Hara. Though he had no knowledge of her case, he ran it through the police computer without knowing that another discovery some twenty miles away would only add to the case in the coming days.

A woman was walking her dogs through the Killakee Forest on August 21, 2013, when her dog retrieved a bone. She thought nothing of it and tossed it aside before continuing on their way. After several weeks of the same dog retrieving what the owner thought were animals' bones, she finally followed the dog into the woods after the dog didn't return.

This was on September 13, 2013. To her horror, the dog trainer found a ribcage and tracksuit pants with a running shoe protruding. She left and contacted the property owner, who contacted the police. A subsequent search located sixty-five percent of a human skeleton and a discarded shovel. DNA and dental records confirmed they were the remains of Elaine O'Hara.

At this point, a more extensive search of the reservoir was conducted, turning up a backpack, leather mask, knives, eyeglasses, two Nokia phones and more assorted BDSM gear. It was determined that the phone matched the one in Elaine's hand on the security camera footage and the serial number on the eyeglasses traced back to her through Specsavers.

A forensic exam of Elaine's apartment revealed that she was a frequent visitor to sites that catered to the BDSM lifestyle. Messages with a user calling himself 'Architect 72" contained references such as "cutting myself" and "punishment involving a master's scalpel." It was discovered that this username linked back to a Gmail account which included "fetishboy" as part of the name.

Friends and family confirmed that Elaine had discussed having an ongoing relationship with an architect who was married.

The case became even more interesting when it was discovered that, after being dried out and charged, the Nokia phones powered up. Each had only one contact, one as "MSTR" and one as "SLV."

Thousands of text messages spanning several years told a very grim story about a dark and sinister relationship. The phone number matched another contact in Elaine's iPhone listed as "David" but there was no answer when police called it.

The flip phones were traced back to a purchase of pay-as-you-go plans under the name "Gordon Caisholn." They found a man named Gordon Chisholm and questioned him, but quickly realized he had no knowledge of the situation and released him. After studying the texts more, they discovered a reference on March 31, 2011, where MSTR said he had a newborn baby and gave her name. Another referenced coming in "fifth in flying" on June 11, 2011.

This led them to a Roundwood model airplane competition in which a man named Graham Dwyer had come in fifth. With his name known, they were able to confirm he had also had a baby born earlier in the year that matched the text timing.

Around this time, an anonymous tipster also surfaced claiming that Graham Dwyer had murdered Elaine O'Hara. The Garda felt confident that they had the right guy. Retrieval of items in his trash receptacle allowed them to put together a DNA profile to match to items previously recovered from the forest, the reservoir, and her apartment. Puncture marks, blood and semen stains found on the mattress in Elaine's apartment matched the DNA acquired from Graham Dwyer's trash.

Despite being a well-respected family man and architect in his community, Graham Dwyer had been hiding a dark secret, it seemed. His wife and two young children knew nothing of his double life. He even tried to convince her he had nothing to do with it, but the evidence was too great. His wife left him.

The subsequent trial revealed the evidence that Dwyer had visited Elaine's complex nine times in 2012. One visit reveals him entering an elevator with Elaine and him leaving alone forty minutes later. Footage from August 13 and 15 shows him leaving with a bag like the one retrieved from the reservoir.

Furthermore, Elaine's search history showed that she had searched for "Graham Dwyer Architect." Gordon Chisholm, who had been questioned earlier in the investigation turned out to be an old acquaintance of Dwyer's.

While Dwyer's personal phone was turned off the night Elaine went missing, his computer revealed that he had ordered a hunting knife to be delivered to his work address on August 21, 2012.

That wasn't the most disturbing discovery though. His computer also revealed erotic horror and files about stabbing and killing he had shared with Elaine. There were also films of himself and four women, who he could be seen stabbing during sexual encounters. Many of the videos included Elaine O'Hara.

Texts and internet recoveries made it clear that Graham Dwyer was the man who had been in contact with Elaine O'Hara, yet he continued to proclaim his innocence right up to the beginning of his trial on January 22, 2015. While the prosecution called almost 200 witnesses, the defense insisted the case was circumstantial and called only three.

Dwyer's wife identified the shovel found with Elaine as the one missing from their garden. His ex, mother of their grown child, testified that he had been abusive and expressed a desire to stab her during sex. Though she eventually agreed to let him bring a knife to the bedroom, but not use it, she said he would still insist on holding it during sex.

Still another witness, an American woman who had also communicated with Dwyer, testified by video, indicated that he had confided his fantasy to kill Elaine O'Hara. She said he told her he used to cut Elaine, with her consent, but he wanted to hunt and kill Elaine and perhaps her, as well. Her testimony matched altered images on Dwyer's computer showing the American woman topless with her throat slit and her intestines spilling out.

Despite all of this, Dwyer's attorneys insisted that the cause of death had not been established by pathologists and it was more likely that Elaine simply committed suicide, as originally believed. They attempted to paint the text messages as merely expressing fantasies between Dwyer and O'Hara.

After a trial that lasted about a month and a half, the jury found Graham Dwyer guilty of murdering Elaine O'Hara. He was sentenced to life in prison by the judge. The trial took such an emotional toll on jurors that the judge exempted them all from jury duty for thirty years.

More than 2600 texts were exchanged between Elaine O'Hara (SLV) and Gordon Dwyer (MSTR) over the course of several years using the Nokia phones recovered from the reservoir. The texts ended in Gordon Dwyer taking the life of Elaine O'Hara, but the exact circumstances of those last moments are known only to the two of them and Elaine is unable to give her side of the story.

What we can see is the fear Elain O'Hara was experiencing in the text messages exchanged during the final days before her demise. Some of them can be found below, though they have been edited to remove some of the more graphic portions of their discussion.

August 14

MSTR: "Am I right in thinking you don't want to die anymore?"

SLV: "I'm sorry I made you so mad."

MSTR: "You'll have to take a punishment. If anything happened to you, who knows about me?"

SLV: "No one knows your name, and no one knows about you really. They know I'm into BSM and that I meet people."

MSTR: "OK, let's keep it that way. If I ever meet your neighbour, I'm your brother, David, ok?"

SLV: "I already told the girl next door that you are a friend."

MSTR: "Would she make a good victim for me?"

SLV: "Too close to home,"

MSTR: "Ok. We will start going on outdoor walks for play and hunting."

August 16

SLV: "I am scared that the punishment will go on for a long time."

MSTR: "No. Swift and brutal. Might even kill you."

August 17

MSTR: "Did a huge walk up the Dublin Mountains yesterday. Plenty of lonely hill walkers up there."

August 20

MSTR: "Morning slave, looking forward to seeing you Wednesday."

SLV: "I'm not being stabbed,"

MSTR: "Ok, but you must take some sort of punishment."

SLV: "I know."

SLV: "I don't know sir. Sorry doc came in. Sir, u know I can't make choices."

MSTR: "Ok overnight in woods."

SLV: "Sir, I'll take stabbing."

MSTR: "Ok, but I must see blood… And I want to do it outdoors."

SLV: "Please sir, indoors."

MSTR: "Why?"

SLV: "I'm afraid if outdoors, you might kill me."

Elaine asks that he not leave marks that might show while she's at the Tall Ship Festival:

SLV: "I was wondering if you could keep the visual marks to a min sir, please?"

MSTR: "That's a big request. But Ok."

SLV: "Thank you sir, I appreciate it. I can cover wrists and arms, it's the neck sir."

MSTR: "Don't worry. I won't stab you in the neck."

SLV: "Maybe not but you want to."

August 21

SLV: "Do you go by the Gorean way and is it just a fantasy? Gorean I mean?"

MSTR: "It's a real lifestyle that people really live by. Yes you are my slave but I need you to be serving me not stuck in a hospital."

SLV: "How do we do that master?"

MSTR: "You need to get out of hospital and serve me."

SLV: "Yes master I'm out tomorrow sir. It will be after lunch as the doc wants to see after lunch at 2.30 b4 I go."

The conversation ends after a bit more back and forth but picks up later in the day.

SLV: "What if we get caught?"

MSTR: "We won't get caught."

SLV: I'm not leaving my apartment. You will have to drag me out."

MSTR: "You will do what you are told. I want outdoor play and you are going to follow instructions."

SLV: "How do you know we won't get caught."

MSTR: "I found a really, really remote place. No one will find us."

MSTR: "Trust me it will be exciting."

SLV: "Sure sir. So what time do you want me tomorrow sir? I was going to go see my niece before I went home and they are hols (sic) next two weeks!"

MSTR: "5:30"

SLV: "Do I have to drive, sir?"

MSTR: "A bit, yes."

SLV: "Now, I'm really scared."

MSTR: "Don't be scared."

O'Hara assures Dwyer that she's not talked about him to anyone, not even in therapy, so no one knows who he is.

MSTR: "That's good. No one should know about me. They would still find me in your emails and way back in your alt history. So relax."

MSTR: "I'm heading to the spot now to double-check."

August 22

SLV: "This place, although a pain at times, is safe because I know what's coming and I don't want to leave. I'm just so scared. Do you know, sir, that I'm scared of you? You have this hold over me.

MSTR: "Do not fear death."

SLV: "Please don't mention killing for a while, just until I settle back into life."

O'Hara's final messages to Dwyer are to say she got out early and is on her way home. She asks for any final instructions.

MSTR: "Have a bath . . . no underwear not even a bra. Loose clothes, footwear for mud. Make sure you are fed. Take a painkiller,"

SLV: "Can I do what I want until I am needed?"

MSTR: "Like what?"

SLV: "I don't know yet, just anything I want to do."

MSTR: "You will be in a lot of pain later and next few days."

SLV: "It's going to be that bad? I'm going to be busy next few days. Tall Ships please don't make it really sore Please."

MSTR: "I want you to park at Shanganagh Cemetery at 5.30. Leave your iPhone at home. Just bring Slave phone and keys. You will get further instructions there."

SLV: "No offence sir, but do we have to do it in the rain. It's cold."

MSTR: "Don't worry, it's never as bad as u think it's going to be."

SLV: "Yes Sir."

MSTR: "Don't be nervous and enjoy being told what to do."

SLV: "Easier said than done sir."

MSTR: "Empty yourself and become nothing. You are property and a piece of slave meat. Your only job is to serve."

O'Hara messages Dwyer when she arrives at the location:

SLV: "Here Sir."

MSTR: "Ok, take only keys and Slave phone. Make your way on foot to park next door and text me in the middle."

SLV: "Please let me take inhaler sir."

MSTR: "Ok."

SLV: "Ok sir is the park with the playing fields in the top part or bottom."

MSTR: "Ok cross railway bridge in the next park near cliffs."

SLV: "I'm lost. I'm lost in the football field now."

MSTR: "Look for railway footbridge near footpath."

SLV: "Here now, where's park?"

MSTR: "Cross bridge and head for opposite end of park near steps to sea."

SLV: "OK on the footpath yes no?"

MSTR: "Yes."

SLV: "Steps here."

The final text arrived at 6 p.m. on August 22, 2012.

MSTR: "Go down to the shore and wait."

This was the last communication between the two of them before whatever transpired once O'Hara was alone in the woods with Dwyer. It would be yet another year before the truth behind what happened to Elaine O'Hara began to unfold.

The victim's statement read at trail from Elaine's family is as follows:

"We know that we are not the only victims of this crime. We recognize that other families are suffering too, and we feel for every other person affected. Words cannot adequately describe how we are feeling, and we would never want any other family to go through what we have endured over the past two and a half years.

We have lost a daughter, a sister, and a friend in the most brutal, traumatic, and horrifying manner. We also have many unanswered questions which we will have to carry with us for the rest of our lives.

Elaine was a very intelligent girl, who never fully realized her potential due to her psychological difficulties. She was prescribed a lot of medication and this did have an impact on her ability to be a regular teenager, particularly socially.

She was emotionally immature and very trusting of anyone who showed her kindness. In later years, her medication was reduced, hospital stays became less common and she functioned more effectively. However, she had missed out on those important, formative teenage years.

She had a strong work ethic and loved working with children, as she could relate to them better than to adults. She was always there to help and assist others, giving lifts, covering shifts at work, or collecting many of the items for the Christmas Fair at school.

Elaine adored her niece who was also her goddaughter and loved reading, painting, and playing with her. For months after she went missing, her goddaughter would point out cars that were like Elaine's saying, "There's Elaine's car".

We smiled and nodded - how can you explain something to a young child that we couldn't understand ourselves? Since she left us, Elaine has two more nieces, but they will never know their aunt.

Elaine's ambition was to be a teacher and she was studying Montessori. In 2014, we collected a BA in Montessori education which was awarded to her in St Nicholas Montessori school. She would have been so happy and proud to stand up in her gown and hat to accept that degree herself after overcoming many obstacles to finally get the qualification she longed for, but unfortunately this was not to be.

When Elaine went missing in August 2012 we were devastated. At that time, she appeared to us to be progressing well in life. She had a new apartment, was studying and working in two jobs.

She had a setback in July of 2012 and was voluntarily admitted to hospital. However, on weekend release, she was in very good form and was looking forward to the future.

The assumed suicide in August 2012 was a surprise to all the family but lack of evidence pointing to any other cause for her disappearance meant we reluctantly needed to accept that she had most likely taken her own life around Shanganagh.

We spent many hours walking the shore from Blackrock to Bray searching for any sign of her. A year after her disappearance we laid flowers in the sea at Shanganagh in her memory and in an effort to find some closure for us as a family.

Our attempt at closure was premature as when in September 2013 Elaine's remains were discovered, the Garda investigation changed from that of a missing person to murder. This led to further anguish for the family as we now faced the imaginable horror of Elaine having been murdered.

The trial has been an incredibly difficult experience. It was distressing to see Elaine's private life laid bare before the nation, despite the fact that she was the victim. Some of the reporting in the print media was insulting to Elaine and deeply upsetting for the family. At times, Elaine's life was relegated to a lurid headline in a newspaper.

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. We were upset that the credibility of our evidence was questioned, as throughout the two and a half years all we wanted was the truth and justice for Elaine.

We will probably never know what happened in Killakee on Wednesday the 22nd of August 2012, but there are questions that trouble us:

When did Elaine realise it was not a game anymore?

When did she realise that the intention was to kill her for real?

Did she try to run? Was she restrained?

Did she suffer much?

Could she and did she cry out?

Was she left on the mountain to die alone?

This is OUR life sentence. For us there is no parole."