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Gardai is investigating whether Tadg O’Sullivan convinced his wife Anne and son Mark to return home last weekend after the couple were away for weeks.
Officers believe the mechanic may have promised his wife and eldest son that they could leave behind the damaging family row that had erupted after the seriously ill mother left part of the family farm to Mark in her will.
Mark O’Sullivan, 26, was the first of the three to die in the early hours of Monday morning. His father and younger brother are believed to have taken their own lives shortly after.
The tragedy, which occurred last Monday at the Assolas family home, near Kanturk, is understood to have been due to an inheritance dispute.
The friends were anxious for Anne, who is battling a serious illness and such were her concerns, it is believed that a person discreetly approached gardaí on her behalf.
Sources have told the Sunday Independent that a “third party” sought Garda’s advice when tensions flared within the family home.
However, there was no formal complaint or statement from an injured party, so a Garda investigation was not launched.
Anne and her eldest son are believed to have been unwelcome at the country house in recent weeks and the couple had stayed at a friend’s house on the outskirts of town.
That arrangement had been in place since mother and son returned to Kanturk after Anne stayed in the Dublin hospital.
Anne recently decided to liquidate her will and estate, left to her by her father and uncle, as her health had deteriorated.
The 60-year-old mother and her oldest son returned to the O’Sullivan family home on Sunday, October 25. It is understood that Anne’s husband had promised her and her eldest son that the dispute that had torn their family apart could be defused.
Hours later, three of the four family members at the isolated farm were dead.
(Image: Provision)
Gardai believes that Tadg, Diarmuid, or both, had decided on a terrible course of action while Anne and her eldest son were in the capital and it was completed days or even weeks before the murder-suicide.
The Gardai investigation is believed to have established that before Mark was killed, the home phone and cell phones belonging to Tadg and Diarmuid were disabled: two smashed phones were found in the home.
Ann O’Sullivan had to run to a neighbor’s house to raise the alarm when she heard the first shots.
It is understood that at 6.40am, Tadg and Diarmuid stood outside Mark’s room and one or both entered and began shooting at him.
The 26-year-old died instantly and Anne ran out of her own room to see the two men at Mark’s door.
Then he fled to a neighbor’s house with his mobile phone to raise the alarm.
Diarmuid is believed to have followed her, removed the device but allowed her to escape. Gardai found the bodies of Tadg and Diarmuid near a fairy fort in a field at the back of the family farm.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been sending messages of support to Ann O’Sullivan following the horrific deaths of the three men in Kanturk.
The church heard Friday how a community is “struggling to make sense” of the tragedy that struck the local area.
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