{"id":201527,"date":"2025-12-20T07:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T07:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/201527\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T07:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T07:12:07","slug":"man-found-dead-in-phoenix-park-was-unidentified-for-a-year-despite-id-in-pocket-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/201527\/","title":{"rendered":"Man found dead in Phoenix Park was unidentified for a year, despite ID in pocket \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The body of a man found dead in Dublin\u2019s Phoenix Park <\/a>remained unidentified by garda\u00ed and the coroner\u2019s service for almost 13 months, despite the later discovery of nine forms of ID in his pocket.<\/p>\n

Fiosr\u00fa<\/a>, the Office of the Police Ombudsman, is investigating how the body of Belfast man James O\u2019Neill remained unidentified for so long and how various forms of identification later found on his person went undiscovered.<\/p>\n

The Dublin District coroner has apologised to Mr O\u2019Neill\u2019s family for the \u201coversight\u201d where his body remained in a Dublin morgue from November 17th, 2023 until December 2024 when a forensic anthropologist found documents in a zipped pocket of his rain coat confirming his identity.<\/p>\n

\"Furze\"Image: Google Earth <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Neill\u2019s remains were found by a Phoenix Park ranger on November 17th, 2023 in a wooded area of the park.<\/p>\n

A garda who attended the scene found a CV bearing the name \u201cJames O\u2019Neill\u201d in a backpack discovered near the body, according to a Garda investigation report. A bicycle was also found nearby.<\/p>\n

The identity on the CV was later discounted as the addresses and companies listed on the CV \u201chad no record of the person named\u201d, the Garda report said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0He was found dead in the Phoenix Park. It took a year to identify him as James O\u2019Neill<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In a February 2025 letter to Belfast solicitors representing Mr O\u2019Neill\u2019s family, Dublin coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said a postmortem was conducted on November 21st, 2023. Mr O\u2019Neill\u2019s name appeared on that postmortem report based on the CV found among the possessions of the dead man.<\/p>\n

His clothing was examined during the postmortem but the examination \u201cdid not reveal any other documentation to assist in identification\u201d, she wrote.<\/p>\n

The remains were left at Dublin District Mortuary until identified in December 2024, a year after the body was discovered, when a forensic anthropologist examined the body to help identify the remains, according to Dr Cullinane\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n

During that examination, documents were found within an inner pocket of clothing that led to the identification of Mr O\u2019Neill. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese documents had not been revealed by any prior examination of the clothing either by An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na or the anatomical pathology technicians of the Dublin District Mortuary,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis oversight on the part of the Coroner\u2019s Service of the Dublin District has caused undue delay and distress to your clients for which I sincerely apologise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Neill\u2019s parents were told about the discovery of their son\u2019s body on December 13th, 2024.<\/p>\n

His parents have made a complaint to Fiosr\u00fa about the Garda response to the discovery of their son\u2019s remains, asking why he went unidentified for so long and why there was no public appeal issued by the Garda in national media or on its website.<\/p>\n

Belfast solicitor P\u00e1draig \u00d3 Muirigh, who represents Mr O\u2019Neill\u2019s parents Ann and Paul O\u2019Neill, described the case as \u201cbaffling\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Garda, Fiosr\u00fa, Dublin Dublin District\u2019s coroner\u2019s office and Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan all declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The body of a man found dead in Dublin\u2019s Phoenix Park remained unidentified by garda\u00ed and the coroner\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[615,104174,61,60,43,29685],"class_list":{"0":"post-201527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-dublin","9":"tag-fiosru","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-phoenix-park"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}