A SLIGO man aged 67 who died at the weekend after being viciously assaulted in his own home about 100 yards from the local Garda station has been described as “one of nature’s gentlemen”.
Relatives and neighbours of vintage car collector Eugene Gillespie are devastated that the popular pensioner apparently endured two days of agony while tied to a chair in his terraced house in Old Market Street, where he had lived all his life.
It is understood Mr Gillespie’s hands were tied with cable wire and he had suffered a broken jaw during the brutal assault.
Gardaí believe the attack during an aggravated burglary happened between 9pm last Wednesday and 9pm on Friday, when Mr Gillespie was found barely clinging to life. He died the following day in Sligo General Hospital.
It is understood two copies of The Irish Times from last Thursday and Friday, which a neighbour had dropped into Mr Gillespie on a daily basis, were found unopened inside his front door.
Horrified neighbour Donal McLynn, who runs a pub a few doors from Mr Gillespie’s home, said elderly people living alone in this close-knit neighbourhood were frightened following the horrific attack on a man who, he said, never drank and always had a kind word for everyone.
“He was a gentleman who always had a big hello for you, either in Irish or English,” said Mr McLynn. “Eugene was the kind of man who would let anyone in if there was a knock on the door. It is just horrible. It makes us all nervous.”
Former Labour TD Declan Bree, who lives around the corner, said the community was horrified that a person could be brutally killed in his own home so close to the Garda station.
He said Mr Gillespie, who was immensely proud of vintage cars including a Jaguar and Morris that he kept in pristine condition at the back of his home, was known as a good neighbour who was always cheerful. “His gentle, kind presence will be missed in our neighbourhood,” he added.
Ironically, the former telephone exchange operator, who was known as a Gaeilgeoir, had a reputation for looking out for elderly people living in the old Market Street/High Street area of Sligo.
Jim Middleton, who grew up with him on Old Market Street, said his friend was one of a kind.
“Eugene was unique. My father who is 97 and my aunt who is 100 lived on that street until a year ago, and Eugene kept an eye on them. He was one of nature’s gentlemen.”
Mr Middleton said he did not believe “one person could have tied Eugene up”. Like many local people he said the circumstances echoed the brutal killing in 1998 of Eddie Fitzmaurice (83), from Bellaghy, on the Sligo/Mayo border. Mr Fitzmaurice, who had lived alone, was assaulted, tied up and left to die before his body was discovered days later.
Mr Gillespie’s brother Brian, who farms at Calry, outside Sligo, said last night the family was “devastated” at the brutal circumstances of his death.
Mr Gillespie, who is also survived by two sisters, Patsy and Elizabeth, lived over the former pork and bacon shop that their father ran in Old Market Street.
It was later a small grocery store, and Mr Gillespie had sold Christmas trees from the premises every year until recently.
Local parish priest Fr Dominick Gillooly described the killing as “very sad and very violent”. He said: “He was a very inoffensive man, a Gaeilgeoir who, if someone knocked, would have let them in. There is so much violence now – something will have to be done about it.”
Yesterday, Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis carried out a postmortem on the body at University College Hospital Galway.
As the Garda Technical Bureau continued to investigate the scene, gardaí appealed for witnesses who may have seen anything suspicious around the Old Market Street area between 9pm last Wednesday and 9pm on Friday to contact them in Sligo on 071-9157000, the Garda Confidential line on 1800666111, or any Garda station.
