Catholic couple Peter and Jane McKearney shot dead in their Co Tyrone home in October 1975
Four people have been identified by Operation Denton as suspects in the double murder of an innocent Catholic couple 50 years ago.
Peter (63) and Jane McKearney (58), died after loyalist gunmen burst into their home near Moy, Co Tyrone, on October 23, 1975, and sprayed them with gunfire.
While the identities of some suspects was already known, fresh details of their role have now been provided.
Edward Sinclair
A former member of the B-Specials and Orange Order, Sinclair was a key figure in the activities of the Mid Ulster UVF in the Mid 1970s.
In May 1976, his farmyard near Moy was raided, and a haul of weapons recovered.
Among the cash was a .38 “semi-automatic pistol” used during the murder of the McKearneys.
Sinclair claimed to have bought the gun in a pub in Moy.
Ammunition, along with commercial and homemade explosives, was also found on Sinclair’s farm.
Operation Denton has said sources suggest “only a fraction of what was on the farm was recovered in the raid”.
“They claim UVF members came to the farm and took material away in the day after the raid.”
Sinclair was not questioned about the McKearney murders.
He later received a six-year sentence for possession of four guns, two homemade submachine guns, a Colt and a Luger.
He was arrested again in 1980, but again not questioned about the murders.
In 1981, the RUC had intelligence that he transported the UVF hit team from a club in Portadown to another vehicle driven by suspect Derek McFarland, who took the killers to the McKearney’s home.
Investigators believe that when the attack was carried out, he brought the murder team back to the club in Portadown.
He was arrested in December 1981 and, on this occasion, interviewed about the McKearney murders.
A note of a briefing given by Operation Kenova states that he “demonstrated knowledge of the attack” adding that he said “he cannot afford to talk”.
After being charged with the murders, the case was dropped by prosecutors in April 1982.
Sinclair is believed to have joined the UVF in the late 1960s “and felt he needed to prepare for an invasion”.
He is reported to have left the B-Specials, a police reserve backed by the old Stormont regime, to join the UVF.
He is described as a “good shot and bomb maker” who made homemade explosives and “showed others how to make them”.
His farm has been described as “a UVF operational base” and that vehicles were stored on the farm.
He is said to have had a “close relationship with officers in charge of other leading UVF sections”.
Garnet Busby
From Moygashel in Co Tyrone, Busby was convicted of killing the McKearneys in 1981, as well as involvement in the Hillcrest Bar bombing in Dungannon in 1976, which resulted in the deaths of four Catholics, including two 13-year-old boys.
Operation Denton spoke with a retired RUC officer who said Busby was “targeted in Dec ’80 because it was considered he was vulnerable to interrogation – within two days he made admissions”.
Prior to the admissions, there was “no intelligence that he was involved” in the murders.
He later claimed the wrong family had been targeted.
He admitted he had been at the house but claimed he only fired one shot after his pistol jammed.
This gun was one of the weapons recovered at Sinclair’s farm.
According to the Operation Denton note, Busby’s father was a firearms dealer, but the family had “no paramilitary links”.
He was initially a member of a loyalist ‘Tartan Gang’ in Dungannon.
He later took part in bomb attacks on several pubs, including the Hillcrest.
In 1974, he was the officer commanding the UVF in Moygashel and, between April 1975 to October that year, was involved in two bomb attacks, according to the note.
He is said to have been friends with the Mid Ulster’s UVF commander at the time, Stewart Young, and his brother Ivor, along with the Moygashel based Somerville brothers.
By May 1976 he was Officer Commanding Dungannon/Moygashel UVF.
“He was a significant UVF member in the Mid Ulster UVF but tried to make out differently in interviews,” the meeting note states.
The note also says that Busby tried to impress a man believed to be Robin ‘the Jackal’ Jackson – a notorious sectarian killer and suspected British agent.
“Sinclair claims that Busby was out to prove himself to Jackson (the person with the big brown eyes),” the note states.
“Before McKearneys his involvement was in bombing bars, this was his first attack where guns were used.”
The note also says there was nothing to link Jackson to the McKearney attack.
“Denton assessment – Busby was involved, he went to the house, he entered the house and he fired at the scene of the attack,” the not states.
Derek McFarland
The driver of the car that transported the loyalist hit squad to the McKearney home, he is said to have joined the UVF after his half-brother, RUC officer Robert Roy Leslie, was shot dead by the IRA in Strabane in September 1971.
Himself an ex-RUC member, at the time of the McKearney murders military records show he was a serving member of the UDR between July 1975 to May 1977 – who was suspended that year “because of associating with loyalists”.
The note states “his personal file says PTUDR 1973”, which appears to suggest he was a part-time member of the regiment at that time.
He was also a member of the Territorial Army and Royal Irish Rifles between January 1966 to March 1967, according to the Operation Denton briefing note
The meeting note shows: “RUC – served in Portaferry and Omagh – dismissed for desertion.”
Other public sources confirm McFarland was also a “Ministry of Defence police constable” from 1972-1975.
He later admitted to a series of offences, including the attempted murder in 1974 of two people, Marian Rafferty and Thomas Mitchell, near Moy.
One suspect in the murder of Peter and Jane McKeaeney is known only as Man 3, although his identity is known to the Irish News.
It is understood Operation Denton does not intend to name him in a report, due to be published shortly.
Originally from the Mourneview estate in Lurgan, he joined the UVF in 1973 and a year later was an ‘explosives officer’ for the group.
He had links to Mid Ulster UVF commander Stewart Young and was a regular in the Poradown club from where the McKearney double murder was launched.
Interned in 1974, he was released less than a year later.
In September 1975 a car he was in was stopped and a notebook “with the details of 25 PIRA members was found under a seat”.
The following year Man 3 was arrested “for having illegal firearms and explosives” and sentenced to eight years.
He was released from prison in March 1980 and is said to have “continued his life as a paramilitary after coming out of jail”.
A year later he was arrested again and charged with conspiracy to murder.
It is understood the charges were dropped after a witness withdrew a statement.
Peter and Jane McKearney were both shot multiple times by a man using a Sterling sub-machine gun.
Operation Denton believes the Lurgan loyalist is “very likely the man who had the machine gun” used during the McKearney murders.
He has never been questioned about the murders.
He was approached by Operation Denton “but didn’t provide any information”.
Man 3 has been described by Operation Denton as “the standout anomaly” and say there was no “known association between Man 3 and Sinclair and Busby”.
They say that prior to the McKearney murders there “was no information that this team had ever worked together”.
