Jane Kelly

Eroline O'Keeffe

A mother's story of her extraordinary efforts to get justice for her murdered son. On 8 August 1987, the body of nineteen-year old Trevor O'Keeffe was discovered in France. The young hitchhiker had unwittingly strayed into the hunting ground of a serial killer. Since 1980, seven young men had disappeared in the 'Triangle of Death' around Mourmelon military camp. A year after Trevor's murder, chief adjutant Pierre Chanal was stopped by police, who found a Hungarian hitchhiker bound and gagged in the back of his van. In 1990 Chanal was convicted of abduction and rape. He was released from prison in 1995. What about her son, Eroline O'Keeffe wanted to know, and those other sons who had disappeared? Although everything pointed to Chanal as the perpetrator, the French justice system and the military seemed uninterested in pursuing the cases. She set about a relentless, sixteen-year-pursuit of Chanal. She harried the authorities and overcame deliberate obstruction, language barriers and judicial bungling, until, finally, in October 2003, she sat in the courtroom in Marnes for the start of the trial of Chanal for the murder of Trevor. Would she get justice so long denied her?

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