Limerick priest 'was murdered during drink-fuelled party in US motel room'
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The murder of a Limerick priest killed in an unsolved case in the US is thought to have taken place during a drink-fuelled party in his motel room.
Fr Patrick Ryan, 49, from Doon, was found naked, bound and beaten to death in his motel room in Odessa in Texas in December 1981. He had booked into the motel under the pseudonym John Killey.
While three suspects who have been identified in the case are all deceased, police have now revealed to the that further fingerprints which were found on beer cans in the room remain unidentified.
An Apache Native American, James Reyos, was convicted in 1983 after he falsely admitted to the murder, before recanting.
Odessa Police Department reopened the investigation into the murder recently following the identification of three suspects after fingerprints taken from the scene in 1981 found matches in the US national fingerprint system last year.
The three — Vietnam War veteran Bobby Collins, Gary Ehrman, and Charles Burkart — are all since deceased. Ehrman was a guest in the motel on the night of the murder, while Collins and Burkart lived in Odessa. Collins was buried with military honours in 2012 and was the holder of two Purple Hearts, an honour given to those wounded or killed while serving with the US military.
Sergeant Scottie Smith of Odessa Police Department told the : “We still have some fingerprints in our case that are unidentified so we don’t know who else was in that room.” He said: “There may have been a party in the room.”
He said there was considerable damage caused to the room on the night of the murder, including holes in doors, blood spatters on the walls, and the bed was broken. He said:
No prior connection between the three identified suspects and Fr Ryan has been established.
Police have established that a chalice, an accordion and personal items including his wallet were stolen in the incident.
A decision is now awaited on a court application to have the conviction of James Reyos overturned by the Court of Appeal in Texas in the coming months.
Mr Reyos met the Doon native three weeks before the murder when Fr Ryan gave him a spin when he saw him hitch hiking. Both lived in Denver City in Texas and met a number of times in the following three weeks.
Mr Reyos, who is now 66 years old, says that Fr Ryan forced him to engage in oral sex when he visited his apartment a day before the murder in December 1981.
He says he bears no grudge against the authorities in Texas for his conviction after he confessed to the killing in a drink and drug-fuelled moment 11 months after the murder.