Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Dublin Live
Dublin Live
National
Paul Healy

Killer Dave Mahon wants to work as a gardener upon prison release says wife

Killer Dave Mahon wants to work in people’s gardens when he’s released from prison next week, his wife has revealed.

In the second part of our exclusive interview with Audrey Mahon, she reveals Dave wants to use his skills as a gardener, which he learned while in prison, to work for the public in his new Co Leitrim bolthole.

And Audrey, whose son Dean Fitzpatrick was killed by Dave, says her husband wants to get back to work immediately.

She said: “Oh God straight away yeah. Well he’s done landscape gardening. He’s worked in the garden in the prison the last four years. He’s at level four horticultural.

“And he’s just a natural with plants. Like his Dad. Before he went away he was doing painting and decorating.”

Dean Fitzpatrick (L), Dave Mahon and Audrey Fitzpatrick (R) (Colin Keegan/Collins Photo Agency)

And she believes in spite of her husband’s notoriety, the people of the area won’t have a problem with him working on their garden or in their homes.

“The thing about it is we lived down here two years before all this came out in the newspapers about it.

“Dave was living here for two years. He was in people’s homes. He was already in the newspapers and they didn’t mind him.

“They knew him as the man, not as this person in the paper.

“Neither of us are worried about that. They don’t like him? So what,” she said.

Audrey, whose daughter Amy went missing from Spain in 2008, also hit back at recent claims that her daughter “feared” Dave Mahon and that she wasn’t happy living with them there.

“Amy is my daughter. She was afraid of nothing and no one.

“She was a mouth like me. She will stand up to anybody.”

Asked if Amy ever stood up to her stepfather, who is set to walk free from prison next week, she added: “Oh God yeah. And me.

“I got the whole ‘I hate you, I hate you I hate you’ and the door slamming. But that’s teenagers and their mothers.

“It used to drive her mad because when she said I hate you I’d say I love you too.

“So it used to just freak her out and that was just the easiest thing to do.”

But Audrey says anyone claiming to know what happened to Amy doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

And she says that claims she shouldn’t stand by the man who killed her only son don’t bother her — as that was her decision to make.

“I would say that’s nobody’s business but mine.

“I don’t give a flying f****. I don’t care. Why would I care? I’m 53. Am I going to go and worry what people think of me?

“I have never cared what people thought of me. All my life. I have always been straight with people and I expect other people to be the same,” she said.

It comes after Audrey told us yesterday how she believes Dave is a “good man” and she hopes the public will now give him a second chance after serving five years in prison for manslaughter.

“I am asking people to give us a chance. He done his time and I’ve done time as well. We’ve both done our time and we both just want to live hopefully, peacefully, the rest of our lives together,” she said.

“People expect that I should have turned my back on him, even though I know what a good man he is.

“I’m going to give it a go. I mean I’m not psychic. I don’t know what way it’s going to turn out.

“At the end of the day I have nothing to lose. I’ve lost everything. So why not give it a go. We do love each other and we’ve always stood by each other,” she said.

This week, The Star met Audrey (53) at her home in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, where she has recently renovated the house for Dave’s release from Wheatfield prison next Thursday.

Audrey says she’s fitted new furniture and cleaned up the house for Dave’s long-awaited arrival, and she says she’s excited to see him finally come home.

“I’ve got new wardrobes, mirrors, chest of drawers, tumble dryer.

Exclusive interview and Pictures Shows. Audrey Mahon, wife of Convicted killer Dave Mahon when released from prison will return to his partner in Carrick On Shannon in the county town of County Leitrim (Mick O'Neill/Monpics Photography)

“It just did me the way it was before because it was just me. But now I feel like I actually have a purpose, to actually do something.

“It’s nice to be able to show him what’s going to be our home now,” she said.

Audrey says she is conscious that some of the public won’t accept her killer husband, who stabbed her son Dean to death in his Dublin apartment, following a row in May 2013.

But she says Dave has done his time, and now she hopes to be able to live a new life with him by her side.

“I am asking people to give us a chance. He done his time and I’ve done time as well. We’ve both done our time and we both just want to live hopefully, peacefully, the rest of our lives together,” she said.

“People expect that I should have turned my back on him, even though I know what a good man he is.

“I’m going to give it a go. I mean I’m not psychic. I don’t know what way it’s going to turn out.

“At the end of the day I have nothing to lose. I’ve lost everything. So why not give it a go. We do love each other and we’ve always stood by each other,” she said.

Get the latest breaking news to your inbox by signing up to our free newsletter

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.