Ireland 1973: a very different world. But a tiny village in County Dublin was about to lose its innocence for ever
On a bright and sunny June afternoon, a seven-year-old boy was left in the care of his teenage neighbour. No one knew, or would even have dreamed of suspecting, that the teenager was a Satanist. The two went out to the fields to look for rabbits. The child was never seen alive again.
For the first time, in the book The Boy in the Attic, it reveals the exact events of that summer day: how the youngster was lured to his death, how the teenager came to delve so deeply into the occult and the nightmarish scene awaiting police when they entered the attic.
But there is another disturbing question – how is it that this murder, which was easily one of the most shocking and horrific in living memory, was barely reported upon at all? Why have you never heard of the boy in the attic until now? It was a crime that so shocked the nation that it was quickly rushed through the legal system and has hardly been reported on since.
The murdered seven-year-old boy found in an attic in Dublin in 1973 was tied to rafters in the attic in a “cruciform”, the author of a book on the killing has said.
The death was Ireland‘s only known “satanic murder”, according to David Malone, who came across the case while carrying out research on other events of the time.
Gardai who recall some of the events explained the case was always regarded as strange and tragic and that the victim, John Horgan, disappeared while he was out looking for rabbits near his home in Palmerstown on June 13, 1974.
His body was found the next day in the attic of the home of a 16-year-old called Lorcan Bale near the Horgan family home in Hollyville, Lucan Road. The 16-year-old was arrested and charged the following day with murder.
Gardai found an altar, on which was a chalice and Communion hosts, beneath the hanging body.
It was afternoon. John Horgan was playing in the Bales’ back garden when Lorcan offered to take him to a nearby field to catch rabbits. Once in the field, Bale spotted a rat hole and told John he’d see a rabbit there. When John stooped down to look into the hole, Bale hit him repeatedly over the head until he was unconscious. Bale then tied the little boy’s legs and arms up and put a gag over his mouth. He put the body into a sack and tied it.
He then returned home to get a haversack, recalling to Gardai that when he tried to put the sack with John’s body into it, it wouldn’t fit properly. John Horgan was a slight child but Bale complained in his statement that his body was heavy to carry. In any case, he hauled the load back home, taking it first to the garage. Even though his father, grandmother, brother and sister were in the house, he managed to move the body up to the attic unnoticed.
There, he placed John on a sinister ‘altar’ that he’d erected a year earlier. He lit candles and arranged a chalice and Communion wafers around the body.
‘I got the body, I took it out of the sack. I tested his heartbeat to see if he were dead or alive and when I was satisfied that he was dead, I loosened the ropes that were around his hands,’ Bale later said in a statement to the police.
‘Then I got a thicker rope, a red rope, and I tied him to a beam that was going across the roof. I secured him there. I tied one hand at each side separately, outstretched. I secured his legs to the upright beam. I then had his body in an upright position. I then left him there. I then put out the candles and I left and I came downstairs.’ Tied to the attic rafters, the little boy’s body was left in the form of a crucifix.
Bale made a show of getting involved in the frantic search for John but not before having a cup of tea. When asked by his worried and nervous granny if he had seen the missing child, Bale replied that the boy was probably playing in one of the further fields. Bale was the last person known to have seen John and on visiting his house, gardai became suspicious when he was vague and evasive during questioning.
A member of the Garda team said they would ‘search the house from the rafters to the cellar’, at which point Bale suddenly confessed to the killing. ‘It’s in the attic,’ he told them. Bizarrely, in between taking part in the search for John and confessing to Gardai, Bale claimed he had returned to the attic and cut the boy’s clothing off with a scissors.
According to the State pathologist who examined John Horgan’s body, the late Maurice Hickey, there was no evidence of a sexual assault but the horrific scene that awaited Gardai in the attic that day was of a naked boy surrounded by religious artefacts in what looked like a Satanic killing.
Although his neighbours didn’t suspect it, Lorcan Bale had become obsessed with witchcraft and had stopped going to church. Friends from the time recalled how he used to catch and kill mice and rats, then wear the skulls around his neck. He also told them that he thought the Devil was similar to other angels but ‘was just living in a different house to God’.
Bale pleaded guilty to the killing and as a minor, was never named in court. He never explained why he carried out the horrendous killing.
Sentenced to life imprisonment, he began his sentence in St Patrick’s Institute for young offenders. However, he was released and allowed to begin a new and successful life in England where he lives on licence and remains in contact with police.
If it wasn’t for Bale’s actions, John Horgan would now be 46, probably working and rearing a family. Bale, despite his horrific actions, got the chance to start over again and has lived and worked in London for years without anyone knowing about his evil past. Questioned by reporters, the concierge at Bale’s apartment complex said he wasn’t surprised to hear of his past, that he was cold, distant and unfriendly but had never caused any trouble. Yet Bale is said to have found God and is very involved in his local church community.
In the course of researching The Boy In The Attic, David Malone has spent a limited amount of time with Bale, who he described as soft-spoken but a nervous, slightly jumpy character.
‘The one thing that struck me about him was his normality,’ he says. ‘In the course of my TV work, I have come across many killers and that’s the one thing that always strikes me about them, their normality.’
Despite reports that Bale is single and lives alone, one informed source says he is married. There have also been reports that he had made preparations to leave England if the spotlight was ever turned on him, as it has now been following the recent belated inquest into John Horgan’s murder.
However, one person who knows him says: ‘He has a respectable job and lives a quiet life. It would be very hard to picture him doing a runner.’ The inquest has dragged up painful memories for both the Horgan and Bale families. Bale’s family long since moved away from Hollyville in Palmerstown. John Horgan’s family was not present at the inquest and have not wanted to comment on the case, which has haunted them for almost four decades.
Lorcan Bale was sentenced to life imprisonment but released after only seven years and went to live in Britain, where he became a devout Christian. The author managed to track him down and though the two had several meetings the question of why he did it was never answered, and after consulting the department of Justice, Bale broke off any further contact with the author.
Bale works as an environmental services manager for Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council, organising the upkeep of one of London’s poshest areas. He is also deeply involved in his local Anglican church. Soft- spoken, his calm demeanour matches the quiet life he lives these days.
After the discovery of the body gardai called local parish priest, Fr Cornelius O’Keeffe, who administered last rites.
The author and TV documentary producer, Mr Malone, said: “It was a Satanist murder. When he was discovered he was in a cruciform tied to the rafters. As a result the 16-year-old was arrested and sentenced to life. It was a terribly tragic case.”
The case reawakened in 2011 at Dublin County Coroner’s Court as Mr Malone said that during his six months of research into the murder he discovered that no death certificate had been issued for John Horgan.
“At the outset of researching something like this you start with birth and death certificates but I found that there was no death cert. I presume it was as a result of an oversight.”
As the juvenile who carried out the murder was never named and not all the details of the nature of the killing were in the public domain there was relatively little publicity about the case.
The Northern Troubles were at their height and a number of security-related crises hit the country around the time of the murder and subsequent court hearings.
The brief hearing to issue the death certificate heard that John Horgan was found in the attic surrounded by “religious objects”.
County Coroner Kieran Geraghty gave a brief account of the details of the tragedy after his office was notified that a death certificate had never been issued.
It is a legal requirement that every death is recorded and registered with the State.
At the hearing, Detective Inspector Richard McDonnell said a male was later charged with the crime and served a sentence.
Det Insp McDonnell, from Lucan garda station, contacted the Horgan family after he was asked in February of this year to prepare an inquest file for the issuing of the death certificate.
“I contacted the family of John Horgan who indicated they did not wish to revisit a very traumatic period in their lives and reopen old wounds,” the detective said. “However, the memory of their son is always with them.”
The Horgan family was not present at the brief inquest.
The coroner revealed that the killer, who is now 56, was now living outside Ireland and said it would be inappropriate to call a full inquest without the consent of the family.
