PETER JUDGE, the drug dealer shot dead in Dublin early yesterday morning, is believed to have been involved in at least two murders.
Judge (41) has been blamed for the killing of Michael Godfrey, shot dead in 1993, and for the killing of William "Jock" Corbally last February. He has also been linked to the murder of Michael Brady in Dublin last September.
Described by gardai as "one of the moist vicious" of Dublin's criminals. Judge's criminal career started at the age of 13 when he robbed a firearms dealer. Over the past six years he had become one of the city's main drug suppliers, controlling the trade in Finglas, Cabra and Ballymun and dealing mainly in cannabis and heroin.
Known as "the psycho" because of his apparently psychopathic tendencies, he was a calculating and violent criminal. One Garda source who had dealt with him said yesterday he considered Judge's "main motive was enjoyment of inflicting injury on people" rather than enjoying the proceeds of his crimes.
In 1980 Judge received a 10 year sentence for armed robbery at Ballyfermot post office four years earlier. He did not begin to build up his drugs business until the early 1990s. Although he had firearms convictions - on another occasion he pointed a weapon at a garda but it failed to discharge - he had never been convicted of drugs offences.
If Judge represented a danger to members of the public and the Garda, the most vulnerable group during his career were his own associates. He is believed to have been involved in the murder of two of them, and the shooting of another in the city centre.
Judge has been linked to the killing of Michael Godfrey, shot in April 1993 over what appears to have been an argument about drug money. Godfrey (56) had returned from Britain where he had served prison sentences for fraud and forgery.
Two masked men, armed with handguns, called to his flat on the North Circular Road and claimed he owed them money. They then drove Godfrey away in his own car. His body was later found in a field near Scribblestown Lane, between Blanchardstown and Finglas. He had been shot twice in the head.
The weapon used was recovered by gardai during a search of a flat in the city some months later. Forensic tests determined that the old handgun had also been used in a shooting at St Joseph's Mansions in the city centre, when an associate of Judge was shot in the leg. It appeared to gardai that Judge was involved in both crimes.
Judge was arrested in connection with the Godfrey murder but remained silent under questioning.
Judge has also been linked to the murder of William "Jock" Corbally, another associate who disappeared last February. Corbally (44), a minor figure in the criminal underworld, was believed to have had a dispute with Judge. He was reportedly taken to a field near Baldonnel airfield before being killed, and his body dumped in an unmarked grave. It has never been recovered.
Judge was also investigated over the murder of Michael Brady (41), shot dead on Dublin's quays last September, although Garda sources said it was "speculation" to link him to that killing at this stage.
Judge was feared locally, and although he was known as a major dealer anti drug activists had not stopped outside his home during their marches.
Judge was considered "an intelligent man", always casually but expensively dressed. "You wouldn't think he was a gouger. He looked well off and you wouldn't be worried about speaking to him if you didn't know who he was," said one person who knew him yesterday. He was considered violent in a calculated way, not prone to volatile behaviour, which made murders he may have been involved in more difficult to investigate.
"There's no doubt he was probably the most dangerous person in the city," one Garda source said. "But he was very clinical, he didn't leave evidence."