Graham Dwyer has been found guilty of murdering Elaine O’Hara.
The Foxrock architect closed his eyes and shook his head after the jurors all agreed he stabbed the childcare worker to death at Killakee Mountain.
Reporters, lawyers, Gardai and members of the public dashed to Court 13 just before 3.30 as news filtered through the building that a verdict was on the way.
All eyes were on the flickering green exit light above the door that separates the jurors from the courtroom. The seven men and five women walked through that door nine minutes later.
The guilty verdict was delivered just moments afterwards.
Nobody made a sound. The accused sat in the dock shaking his head while Elaine O’Hara’s family embraced and wept as their nightmare finally came to some sort of a conclusion.
Graham Dwyer was arrested in October 2013 – a month after a dog walker stumbled upon Elaine O’Hara’s remains and a full year after he lured her up the Dublin Mountains to her death.
Elaine suffered from depression and had promised to let Dwyer kill her if she ever wanted to die by suicide - - A promise she took back on several occasions in the lead up to her death.
She was last seen at Shanganagh Park near Shankill on August 22nd 2012. The jury was asked to consider whether Dwyer arranged to meet her there before luring her to the Dublin Mountains to stab her to death for his own sexual gratification.
And after examining several exhibits including knives found at his workplace and in the Vartry reservoir in Wicklow, combined with all the circumstantial evidence heaped against the accused during a trial that lasted over 40 days, the jurors were satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, that he ALONE was Elaine O’Hara’s killer.
Mr. Justice Tony Hunt thanked the jurors for their work and excused them from duty for 30 years.
Mr. Dwyer will be handed the mandatory life sentence when he appears in court again next month.
In a statement Elaine O’Hara’s family said they are "relieved that justice has been served for Elaine", and hope the case raises awareness of the need to behave safely online.
Graham Dwyer's legal team have released a statement on his behalf, in which the convicted murderer thanks his "family, friends and colleagues for their 'continued, unwavering support'".
Dwyer also said there will be no 'further comment' by his family or himself 'concerning this case whatsoever'.
Trial background
Evidence was extracted and witnesses sought from several locations across Dublin and further afield as part of the Garda investigation into the death of Elaine O’Hara.
Following his arrest in October 2013, extensive searches were carried out at Graham Dwyer’s Foxrock home and his office at A&D Wejchert on Lower Baggot Street.
A technical examination was also carried out at Elaine O’Hara’s apartment at Belarmine Plaza in Stepaside and detectives even travelled to the US to interview a woman about her online relationship with the accused.
But the three most significant scenes were the location of her last reported sighting at Shanganagh Park, the Vartry reservoir in Roundwood, Co. Wicklow where her personal belongings were found along with two mobile phones allegedly used by Mr. Dwyer to contact Elaine as part of their BDSM relationship and the woodland on Killakee Mountain in Rathfarnham where the childcare workers skeletal remains were found over a year after she was reported missing.
98FM's Crime Correspondent Frank Greaney travelled to each of these locations to bring you these reports:
The following location is the last place anyone reported seeing Elaine O'Hara alive...
The unusually warm summer of 2013 lead to investigators making their first breakthrough at Vartry Reservoir...
Elaine O'Hara's full remains have never been found, but her partial remains were found at Killakee Mountain...
