AT the time of her death Veronica Guerin was on the verge of writing yet another article on the activities of a south Dublin criminal believed to have been behind the previous attempt on her life in January 1995.
She was shot in the leg on that occasion. That shooting, at her home in north Co Dublin, occurred shortly after the Sunday Independent published one of her expose's on this criminal's activities.
The man, a prime suspect in the Garda investigation into her murder, had links in the past with the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and is heavily involved in drug dealing and other crime in the south and west of the city.
He has two addresses, one in a working class suburb in southwest Dublin where he grew up and another in an expensive apartment complex in Ballsbridge. He also has a near permanent suite at his disposal in a hotel in the south of the city.
For a person with no legitimate source of income, he has an ostentatious lifestyle. He spends large sums in nightclubs and hotels and regularly takes holidays in Mediterranean resorts. He also spends tens of thousands of pounds each year on cars.
Like most of the city's professional criminals, he began his career in petty crime in his early teens, but has had no convictions since his early 20s.
Suspect No 2 is another well known criminal who, like the first suspect, has been the subject of Veronica Guerin's expose's. He may have had more reason than most to want to stop her reporting on his activities.
He is one of the city's most successful and dangerous criminals. He graduated from ram raiding shops as a teenager in the early 1980s to major armed robberies along with a group of associates who also include former INLA figures.
His gang carried out the armed robbery of a security van in Marino in 1984, netting over £1 million. The £2.6 million robbery at the AIB cash centre in Waterford four years ago and the £2.8 million robbery at the Brinks Allied cash depot in north Co Dublin in January 1995 were also carried out by his gang.
Suspect No 2 is believed to have personally carried out two or three killings, including that of a former associate and one time INLA member, Patrick McDonald, in 1992.
In the past two or three years, he has directed the proceeds of his crimes into legitimate enterprises' ranging from transport businesses to pubs run by associates.
He has also established a well to do lifestyle for himself and his family away from his impoverished roots in the north inner city.
He sends his children to fee paying schools and lives in a respectable suburb in the north of the city.
It had been surmised that this man's move towards legitimate business might have precluded him from a crime such as the murder of a journalist, but he is dangerous and unpredictable and is reported to have recently become anxious about information on his media businesses appearing in the media. It is possible he ordered, the assassination to deter journalists.
Suspect No 3 is a wealthy criminal, the owner of a leisure business with a value of more than £2 million. He has made a fortune from drug dealing. He is also believed to have led the gang which hijacked a lorry load of computer parts, worth millions on the black market, in west Dublin last year.
He is also known to have had an intense hatred of Ms Guerin after she wrote about him.
Like the previous two criminals, he has kept an address in a working class area of south west Dublin although he moves between a plush home in its own grounds in Co Meath and hotel suites in the city.
In the past year, his criminal activities have been curtailed by the arrest of members of his gang, although he is still regarded as one of the richest and most dangerous criminals in the city.
Also, like suspect No 2, this man has moved into legitimate business and has sent at least one child to an expensive school in south Dublin without having any declared legitimate source of income. Outside criminal circles he regularly attends sporting events, mixing with wealthy and public, figures.
This man has previously been suspected of ordering contract assassinations and had threatened to kill Veronica Guerin.
After one of his threats, gardai stepped up their guard on Ms Guerin, and for a while she was accompanied by two armed detectives, but she opted to abandon this protection earlier this year after she calculated that the threat against her had diminished.
The fourth suspect is an associate of suspect No 2, who has risen to become the south inner city's principal drugs supplier. He "is a violent man with a known grievance against Ms Guerin.
He is one of Dublin's main heroin suppliers and, gardai believe may be one of two figures who have helped to convert the money raised through robberies into a fortune in drug finance.
He regularly socialises with suspect No 2 and his family and travels to Portugal and other destinations on holiday with other criminals.
His drug dealing is centred on the Dolphin's Barn area, and his sellers recently came under pressure from local vigilantes including some Provisional IRA members. In recent times he, too, has begun the transformation from the drugs underworld into legitimate business by investing money in the fashion industry.
Another major drug dealer who is figuring prominently in the murder investigation has recently moved to Amsterdam. Ms Guerin had written about this man, who was based in Ballyfermot, on a number of occasions, and he, too, was the subject of a number of Garda inquiries which resulted in one of his closest associates being imprisoned.
As a result of sustained Garda investigations, the man decided to move his operations to Holland, from where, it is believed, he is attempting to set up a supply network providing Irish and British criminals with illegal drugs, mainly heroin and ecstasy.
This man was behind the attempt to set up an ecstasy factory in west Dublin and Co Meath last year. He put up hundreds of thou sands of pounds and arranged for, the purchase of chemicals and two tablet presses, but the operation was stopped just as it began to produce the drug after a successful Garda surveillance operation.
It is possible this man may also have blamed Veronica Guerin for prompting the sustained Garda investigations which resulted in his criminal operations in Dublin being closed down.
There are other criminal figures in the city, including a family who virtually control the trade in ecstasy, who would also be capable of contracting an assassination such as yesterday's.
However, Ms Guerin had concentrated her attentions on the biggest and worst criminals city, and one or other of them is almost certainly to blame.
Ms Guerin was keenly aware of the price that could be paid for exposing the affairs of these gangsters. In recent months she had spoken of her concerns to other journalists and only last week told one reporter she was thinking of going "legit", moving away from the concentration on the dangerous journalistic territory she had been covering.
She was particularly upset last year by a telephoned threat from one of the major criminals against her and her six year old son.
One or other of these gangsters, acting alone or in concert, probably ordered yesterday's assassination.
Criminals may have been plotting her death since last year. They waited until she had abandoned her Garda bodyguard and apparently tracked her to her court appearance, on a minor traffic charge, at Naas District Court yesterday morning.
Until yesterday the "professional" assassinations in Dublin had been within the criminal underworld. The killings were characterised as thieves killing thieves" by the Garda Commissioner, Mr Patrick Culligan. None of the dozen or so contract assassinations in the last two years has been solved.
Under the current criminal justice system and the rules of evidence, such criminals are likely to remain immune to prosecution.
The State has yet to adopt the legal measures and policing tactics which have proved successful against organised crime in countries such as Italy and the United States. There have been almost no successful prosecutions based on the evidence of accomplices. Nor can gardai bring prosecutions on the evidence of taped telephone conversations, as the police in other countries can.
It is highly unlikely, under the present criminal justice system in the State, that whoever ordered Ms Guerin's murder will face charges.