The following is a description of the final movements of RUC officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan, as detailed in the Cory Report published in December 2003.
"Before he left the station at Armagh, Chief Superintendent Breen expressed his misgivings about attending the meeting to his Staff Officer, Sergeant Mains (now Chief Inspector Mains). He stated that he was uneasy about going to Dundalk because he believed that one of the officers stationed there had contact with a member of a notorious family from the area suspected of being a member of PIRA and of carrying out smuggling activities in the area and would pass information to him. Chief Superintendent Breen told Sergeant Mains that he felt that certain members of the Gardaí were on that person's payroll. In a later statement, Sergeant Mains named a particular Garda officer about whom Chief Superintendent Breen had expressed concern.
In any event, Chief Superintendent Breen left the Armagh station and drove to Newry station to meet Superintendent Buchanan. He arrived there at approximately 1.40pm. The officers then left Newry at 1.50pm and drove to Dundalk in Superintendent Buchanan's car.
When Chief Superintendent Breen and Superintendent Buchanan arrived at the Garda station in Dundalk, at about 2.00 or 2.10pm, they parked Buchanan's car in front of the station. At the meeting the RUC officers informed Chief Superintendent Nolan of the alleged smuggling activities.
The meeting finished at 3.15pm. When Chief Superintendent Breen and Superintendent Buchanan left they were careful not to discuss the route they were taking back. However, it was known that Buchanan often used the Edenappa Road in order to avoid setting a pattern of constant use of the main road.
While the meeting was in progress, Garda A was for a time standing outside the Dundalk station. He saw a grey or blue Cavalier (whose licence plate he was able to partially identify) drive through the car park at the Dundalk station. It entered the station yard at the southern side, drove through, and then proceeded to drive into town. The driver appeared to be looking around while he drove slowly through the car park.
Further, at around 2.30pm, a man who was working close to the Garda station stated that he saw a red Ford Capri, which had front end damage and Northern registration plates bearing a number that was noted, drive slowly past the Garda station on three separate occasions.
There was a telephone kiosk in front of the Garda station. Anyone standing at the kiosk would have had a clear view of all the vehicles parked at the Dundalk station. Garda investigations showed that two calls had been made from this kiosk, one at 1.30pm and the other at 2.22pm. These calls were made through the Operator. The first was to a number in Belfast and the second to a number in Newry. However, subsequent inquiries established that these calls were not connected to the incident. One was made by an employee to his employer at the Ulster Lumber Co. and the other was made to a school in Newry. The person making the calls stated that he had not observed anything unusual.
The ambush
From the point of view of the murderers, the location of the ambush was ideal. The topography and the trees in the area provided ideal cover and the site could not be seen from the nearby British Army observation posts. It was located on the Edenappa Road, close to a vacant, abandoned house, referred to in some reports as "Morgan's". The driver of a north-bound vehicle approaching the site would have difficulty in attempting to decide if it was in reality an ambush.
Descriptions of the scene and the sequence of events were obtained through eyewitness accounts, intelligence reports and other investigations carried out by the RUC and Gardaí. It appears that shortly before the shooting two men, dressed in army battle fatigues and with camouflage paint on their faces, were at the scene. They were both armed. One was stationed at the side of the road in the ditch, while the other controlled traffic. A few minutes before the Buchanan car came on the scene, three south-bound vehicles were stopped. The first south-bound car was ordered to pull into the left-hand side of the road and told to switch off the engine. Another south-bound car, a white vehicle, was ordered to pull in to the right-hand side of the road at an angle and turn off the engine. The second car was parked approximately one car length behind the first vehicle. Almost immediately after the second car was stopped, a third arrived on the scene proceeding south. This car was also told to park on the left-hand side immediately behind the first car. It was apparently a blue Talbot.
The occupants of the three south-bound vehicles were told to get out of their cars and lie on the roadside with their hands over their heads. One of the two armed men covered the carefully placed vehicles with his weapon while the other gunman remained standing in the middle of the road. When the last south-bound vehicle was in position, there was room for only one vehicle to proceed along the road and that but slowly.
Shortly after the last south-bound vehicle was stopped and in place, Superintendent Buchanan's red Vauxhall Cavalier appeared, driving northerly. It too was flagged down by the armed man in the middle of the road. He slowed down and, as he did so, a cream-coloured van, which had been following, overtook Superintendent Buchanan's car and pulled into the laneway to the vacant house, opposite the red car. Four armed men, who were also in camouflage gear but wearing balaclavas, came out of the cream van and approached the red car. They started firing at it immediately. The red car attempted to back up to escape. It appeared to stall and then try once again, but stalled once more and never moved again. Both occupants of the car were hit several times. Superintendent Buchanan was in all probability dead by the time his car came to a stop. Examination of the vehicle the next day indicated that it was still in reverse with the accelerator pedal fully depressed.
Ballistic testing revealed that two of the men who shot at the red Vauxhall Cavalier used .223 Armalite rifles, one used a Ruger mini 14 and the fourth a 7.62 Short. The testing indicated that one Armalite rifle had last been used in a helicopter attack at Silverbridge on 23 June 1988. The other Armalite rifle had last been used in the murder of Eamon Maguire at Cullaville on 1 September 1987. There was no prior recorded trace of the other two rifles. There were at least 25 strike marks from bullets along both sides of the Vauxhall Cavalier, although the majority appeared to be aimed at the driver's side.
The autopsy performed on Superintendent Buchanan revealed that he had suffered many fragment wounds on the right side of the head. He also sustained many fragment wounds on the front of the right shoulder and upper chest and two major fragments had penetrated completely through his chest from front to back. He had suffered a lacerated lung and considerable internal bleeding.
He had also been shot in the head at close range, almost certainly after he had died.
Chief Superintendent Breen had been wounded in the abdomen, the upper right shoulder and arm and sustained wounds to his head. He had been hit on both the left and right side of his body. It appears that he had left the car after it came to a stop, waving a white handkerchief. It was obvious that he had suffered several gunshot wounds before he left the car which, although severe, did not appear to have been fatal. Eyewitness accounts indicated that a member of the shooting team walked up to him and shot him in the back of the head."