A woman jailed for a notorious killing involving the dismembering of a man’s remains has been released from prison.
Dubliner Linda Mulhall has been released at the expiry of her 15-year manslaughter sentence for her role in the killing of her mother's partner.
Ms Mulhall (43) was found guilty in October 2006 of the manslaughter of Farah Swaleh Noor (39), a native of Kenya, on March 20th, 2005.
Her sister Charlotte Mulhall remains in prison, as she is serving life on a murder conviction for her more significant role in the killing.
Like all other prisoners, Linda Mulhall was entitled to 25 per cent remission on her sentence. That meant she was only ever due to serve 11 years and three months.
That sentence expired on Tuesday, when she was released from the women’s Dóchas Centre prison on the Mountjoy campus in north Dublin.
She was entitled to temporary release as the expiry of her sentence approached, including over the Christmas period.
No fixed address
However, because she had no fixed address to be released to, she could not take up the temporary release she was entitled to.
Prisoners serving long sentences are usually granted several periods of temporary release as it prepares them for re-entry into society.
Linda Mulhall had made a number of efforts in the courts to have her sentence reduced. These were rejected.
The sisters – dubbed the Scissors Sisters – fatally attacked Noor at their mother's house at Richmond Cottages off Dublin's North Strand.
Evidence at the sisters’ trial suggested they were on a vodka and ecstasy binge with Noor and their mother, Kathleen, when Noor made an aggressive pass at Linda.
When he ignored warnings to leave her alone, Charlotte picked up a Stanley blade and cut his throat. Noor, who had a wife and two children in Kenya, staggered into a downstairs bedroom.
Charlotte stabbed him up to 20 times with a kitchen knife while Linda admitted hitting him “a good few times” in the head with a claw hammer.
Plastic bags
Both then spent hours sawing up his body in the bathroom, packing most of the parts into black plastic bags.
They then dumped his limbs and torso in the nearby Royal Canal before taking his head on the bus to Tallaght.
It was hidden in a park before being disposed of at another location. The head and penis of the victim have never been found.
Linda claimed it was Charlotte’s idea to dismember the body, but Charlotte, who initially denied her involvement in the murder, said her mother, Kathleen, had told the sisters to kill him and gave them the knife and hammer.
It was claimed she then ordered them to cut up the body.
Noor’s arms and legs were spotted floating in the Royal Canal 10 days after his brutal murder.
His body was retrieved by the Garda Sub Aqua Unit in seven different parts after a passerby saw his leg, with a sock on the end, sticking out of the water.
Charlotte Mulhall told gardaí: “Me mammy said, ‘Just cut him up’. I just remember cutting . . . I cut him up with the knife.”
Linda, a mother of four, told gardaí: “Charlotte started sawing his legs with the knife. The smell wouldn’t go away. I think about it every night.”
‘Most grotesque’
Mr Justice Paul Carney said: "This is the most grotesque case of killing that has occurred within my professional lifetime."
Both sisters have a history of drink and drug abuse. Charlotte has a conviction for prostitution. Linda had been beaten by her former partner. The same man was jailed for cruelty to Linda’s children.
Their mother Kathleen Mulhall was jailed for five years for cleaning up the murder scene.
Her trial had been delayed because she fled to England after the murder.
The court heard that she had been in a relationship with Noor since 2002, that the relationship was “abusive” and that Kathleen Mulhall had “suffered a lot”.
Evidence was also presented that she had been abused by both of her parents and later by her husband, John Mulhall.
John Mulhall took his own life in December 2005 after full details of the case emerged.
After the jailing of the Mulhall sisters, their brother James Mulhall (44), was sent to prison for robbing two shops at knifepoint.
He claimed in court he needed the money to feed his own children and those of his jailed sister, Linda.
