Millionaire farmer, 75, died a DAY after secretly marrying his carer, 50, and was embalmed with 'undue haste', court hears - as his family rubbish wife's claim she'd dated him since she was 16 and beg police to investigate
Lawyers for Lisa Flaherty, 50, said she had been 'hauled over the coals' during the three-day inquest as the family of Joseph Grogan, who was 75 at the time of his death, vowed to challenge their short-lived marriage.
The barrister representing three of Mr Grogan's cousins, Damien Tansey cast doubt over Ms Flaherty's claims her late husband was suffering from inoperable, stage 4 cancer, as he dramatically declared: 'None of that evidence is true or accurate.'
He also told the court that Ms Flaherty's claim their relationship began when she was 16 and put the deceased in the 'realm of being a paedophile' and had caused great upset to his family.
The three-day proceedings at a court in Tullamore drew to a close on July 16 as coroner Raymond Mahon recorded a narrative verdict in the case of Mr Grogan, who was suffering from cancer and died just a day after getting 'secretly' married to his carer Ms Flaherty.
Mr Mahon dismissed suggestions by barristers for Joseph Grogan's family that the gardaí should conduct a thorough, forensic investigation before he reached his decision.
The court heard Mr Grogan, 75, was being treated for cancer but had been responding well to treatment. He died at his home at around 3pm on April 15, 2023, the day after attending a registry office to marry Ms Flaherty, 50.
Within hours, his body was embalmed, making it virtually impossible to determine a definite cause of death, Mr Mahon noted. Mr Grogan was a well-known figure in the farming community, and hosted the National Ploughing Championships between 2016 and 2018.
His estate, which school SNA Ms Flaherty now stands to inherit, is valued at €5.5million. Mr Mahon said Mr Grogan was diagnosed in early January 2023 with stage 4, aggressive , high grade non- Hodgkin's lymphoma.
He said he had suffered infections after two of his four rounds of chemotherapy, and that Mr Grogan was said by his oncologist to be vulnerable due to the chemo and his significant weight loss.
He said Mr Grogan's death was due to a 'probability of infection', his immune system having been compromised. Mr Mahon said there were 'valid concerns' about Mr Grogan's care, but said it must be borne in mind that Mr Grogan was very reluctant to see a doctor.
He said it had been a very difficult and distressing case, and commiserated with both the Grogan and Flaherty families.
Mr Mahon had ruled on day one of the three-day inquest that he would not make any decision about the validity of the marriage.
Earlier, Damien Tansey, barrister for three first cousins of Mr Grogan, Alo, Margaret and Seán, called for the case to be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, for a forensic examination by the gardaí.
He told the coroner that it was open to him to record a verdict of unlawful killing, which he said could arise from omission or commission.
In his closing submission, Mr Tansey said it was clear that Mr Grogan was very ill between April 5, when he finished his fourth round of chemotherapy, and April 15, when he died.
He said that without medical intervention during that period, the consequences could be 'dreadful'.
'Was he properly treated during that ten-day period?' he asked. '…The only intervention during that ten-day period was to hurriedly and secretly arrange a marriage by which she [Ms Flaherty] stood to gain an estate valued at €5.5million.'
Mr Grogan's 'sudden and unexpected' death had caused disquiet in the local area and in the medical community, he said.
He suggested that those concerns had not been assuaged during the three-day inquest.
Mr Grogan's oncologist had testified that Mr Grogan's cancer was responding well to treatment, and the pathologist had confirmed that cancer had not been the cause of death, and neither was organ failure.
Mr Tansey said the swift embalming procedure meant that the pathologist could not test for drugs in Mr Grogan's system. However, pathologist Charles d'Adhemar had warned that if the three medications Mr Grogan had been prescribed were not administered correctly, it could depress his respiratory and nervous systems.
The 'star witness' in the case, Lisa Flaherty, had repeatedly spread a narrative that Mr Grogan had an inoperable, stage 4 cancer and was at the end-of-life stage, awaiting palliative care, Mr Tansey said. 'None of that evidence is true or accurate,' he said.
He also noted that she had told the inquest she had been in a long-term relationship with her neighbour Mr Grogan, when she had other partners, and three children who were not Mr Grogan's.
Her suggestion that their relationship began when she was 16, which 'puts Joseph Grogan into the realm of being a paedophile' had caused great anxiety to the Grogan family, he said.
He continued: 'The troubling issue in this case is the secrecy of the marriage… her own sister did not know about it until the following day. Her best friend did not know until the following day. And she put a notice on the door of the house saying 'No visitors'. What was that about?'
He said that less than 24 hours after the 'secret marriage' there was the 'unlawful removal of the remains from the house'.
Peter Jones, a solicitor representing Teresa Mooney, Mr Grogan's 90-year-old aunt, called for an open verdict, and for the gardaí to investigate.
He said the inquest had left 'an awful lot of unanswered questions'. He also pointed to the 'undue haste' with which he said Mr Grogan's remains were taken to be embalmed, and to the contradictory evidence given by Ms Flaherty about Mr Grogan being at the end of his life, and awaiting palliative care.
The Grogan family had been excluded during the 'reign of secrecy' of Ms Flaherty, he said. They had to learn of Mr Grogan's death from a friend, which he said showed 'cruelty'.
'My client is concerned for justice for Joseph Grogan,' he said.
'Despite the best efforts of this inquest, we are no closer to knowing the way or circumstances of this death.'
He said there was a need to 'satisfy public disquiet', adding that most people on the street would be concerned to hear that a man had died the day after getting married, 'and was embalmed by teatime'.
Stephen Byrne, for Ms Flaherty, said Mr Tansey had all but accused his client 'of causing the death of the late Mr Grogan'.
He said he had been concerned that the inquest would be used 'to attack the good name and reputation of Ms Flaherty', and that this had proved to be the case.
He said an inquest could only be adjourned for further investigations to be carried out on the basis of valid, legitimate suspicions, and said that threshold had not been reached.
Other friends and family of Mr Grogan could have gone over the head of his carer, Ms Flaherty, and called a doctor themselves if they were concerned – but they did not, he said.
Instead, he said, the person who cared for him and 'stepped up to the plate' had been 'hauled over the coals'.
'It is easy for people who did not step up to the plate to instruct their lawyers to come in and criticise someone who did step up and take responsibility,' Mr Byrne said.
Mr Grogan himself was reluctant to seek help or see a doctor, he said, and that was his own decision.
'He knew his own body, and he knew he was not going to beat this [cancer],' he said.
Niamh Higgins, Ms Flaherty's sister and neighbour, told the court that she was a psychiatric nurse with an additional qualification in palliative care.
She said her mother had called her early on the day of Mr Grogan's death, telling her that his condition was deteriorating, and that she had gone up to the house.
Mr Grogan was in bed, and appeared to be comfortable and not experiencing any pain or distress, she said.
Ms Flaherty told her that she had called an ambulance at around 10.30am, as Mr Grogan's condition had rapidly deteriorated.
She said she was told the paramedic had advised that palliative care in hospital would not be available until the Monday, and that Mr Grogan had said he wanted to stay at home.
She said she advised her sister that the MIDOC doctor-on-call service should be called, and that Ms Flaherty agreed, but asked her to make the call, which she did at around midday.
By this time, she said, Mr Grogan's pulse was irregular and weak, his breathing was shallow and he was less responsive. At 3.48pm, she said, she could no longer detect a pulse.
Ms Higgins told the inquest that she learned of her sister's marriage after Mr Grogan's death.
Mary Coyne, a friend of Ms Flaherty and Mr Grogan, said he had told her of his marriage on the morning of his death.
She said that he had said, in a low voice, 'I have news, we got married.'
Seán Grogan, a cousin of Joseph Grogan, from Naas, Co. Kildare, said that when he saw Joseph shortly before he died, his cousin had one eye closed, and one eye only half open.
His head was leaning to one side, and he was limp, he said.
He said that Mr Grogan had been a confirmed bachelor, who had previously had a 23 or 24-year relationship with a local woman, but had never expressed an intention to get married.
Pádraig Grogan, another cousin who ran a neighbouring farm and saw Joseph Grogan regularly, said he had been on holiday in the US when Mr Grogan died.
He said his wife had sent text messages to Ms Flaherty to stay in touch, but there had been no response on August 14 or 15. They learned of Mr Grogan's death on RIP.ie, he said.
He had understood that his cousin had inoperable cancer and that there was no hope in his final months, he said.
'I would have loved to have known then that his results were so good from the oncologist, and to make sure that he knew it,' he told the inquest. 'Joe wanted to live.'
Speaking following the verdict, Mr Tansey said that the focus of the Grogan family would now be on the validity of the marriage – which may involve a High Court challenge.
Martin Keyes – a lorry driver, part-time undertaker and family friend – told the inquest he had taken the body to be embalmed just over four hours after Mr Grogan's death.
He said he had been told by Mr Grogan's wife, Ms Flaherty that a doctor had released the body for the funeral.
He agreed he had not seen a death certificate for Mr Grogan, who he had known since he was a child.
He said he knew now, having attended the inquest earlier this month, that the doctor on call could not have given his consent for the body to be removed, as he was not Mr Grogan's treating GP.
He also agreed that he had not reported the death to the gardaí or the coroner on the day it happened, as was his legal responsibility.
He said he was not a member of the Irish Association of Funeral Directors, the rules of which state an undertaker requires medical confirmation of death. He said he was not regulated by any organisation.
'Why did you remove the body with such indecent haste to be embalmed?' Mr Tansey asked him.
He replied: 'There was no haste. It was about 7.30pm by the time I took Joe Grogan to Longford. He died at 3pm I think.'
Mr Tansey put it to Mr Keyes that Mr Grogan's death was 'sudden and unexpected' and the coroner had been sufficiently concerned to instruct the gardaí to go to Mr Grogan's house and escort the body to the Tullamore mortuary for a post-mortem examination.
Asked why he had gone to Longford, when the court had heard there were other, closer embalming services, Mr Keyes replied: 'That's who we use.'
He said the undertakers had not asked him for any paperwork.
Mr Tansey asked: 'You know that embalming destroys tissues and so on in the body, such that it renders the post-mortem almost non-effective?'
Mr Keyes replied that he did not know much about embalming before the inquest.
He agreed that he now knew that the pathologist had been inhibited from finding the cause of Mr Grogan's death, and from determining if any drugs had caused his death. However, he said that what he had done was 'normal standard practice'.
Mr Keyes said he had attended about 100 funerals in the 15 years he had worked as an undertaker, but just two in 2023 before Mr Grogan's death, on Saturday, April 14.
Mr Keyes said Mr Grogan's funeral had originally been arranged for the Monday, April 16, but that the date was put back following the coroner's intervention.
He said he had been asked to be the undertaker for Mr Grogan by his father, who was a close friend of the deceased
He said he had known Mr Grogan himself since he was a child
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
40 minutes ago
- The Independent
Two boys stumbled across ‘a jumble of bones' at a derelict baby home. Their discovery will haunt Ireland forever
It begins with a forbidden fruit. It was the 1970s in this small town in the west of Ireland when an orchard owner chased off two boys stealing his apples. The youngsters avoided being caught by clambering over the stone wall of the derelict Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home. When they landed, they discovered a dark secret that has grown to haunt Ireland. One of the boys, Franny Hopkins, remembers the hollow sound as his feet hit the ground. He and Barry Sweeney pushed back some briars to reveal a concrete slab they pried open. 'There was just a jumble of bones,' Hopkins said. 'We didn't know if we'd found a treasure or a nightmare.' Hopkins didn't realise they'd found a mass unmarked baby grave in a former septic tank — in a town whose name is derived from the Irish word meaning burial place. It took four decades and a persistent local historian to unearth a more troubling truth that led this month to the start of an excavation that could exhume the remains of almost 800 infants and young children. The Tuam grave has compelled a broader reckoning that extends to the highest levels of government in Dublin and the Vatican. Ireland and the Catholic Church, once central to its identity, are grappling with the legacy of ostracising unmarried women who they believed committed a mortal sin and separating them from children left at the mercy of a cruel system. A map of Tuam: Word of Hopkins' discovery may never have traveled beyond what is left of the home's walls if not for the work of Catherine Corless, a homemaker with an interest in history. Corless, who grew up in town and vividly remembers children from the home being shunned at school, set out to write an article about the site for the local historical society. But she soon found herself chasing ghosts of lost children. 'I thought I was doing a nice story about orphans and all that, and the more I dug, the worse it was getting,' she said. Mother and baby homes were not unique to Ireland, but the church's influence on social values magnified the stigma on women and girls who became pregnant outside marriage. The homes were opened in the 1920s after Ireland won its independence from Britain. Most were run by Catholic nuns. In Tuam's case, the mother and baby home opened in a former workhouse built in the 1840s for poor Irish where many famine victims died. It had been taken over by British troops during the Irish Civil War of 1922-23. Six members of an Irish Republican Army faction that opposed the treaty ending the war were executed there in 1923. Two years later, the imposing three-story gray buildings on the outskirts of town reopened as a home for expectant and young mothers and orphans. It was run for County Galway by the Bon Secours Sisters, a Catholic order of nuns. The buildings were primitive, poorly heated with running water only in the kitchen and maternity ward. Large dormitories housed upward of 200 children and 100 mothers at a time. Corless found a dearth of information in her local library but was horrified to learn that women banished by their families were essentially incarcerated there. They worked for up to a year before being cast out — most of them forever separated from their children. So deep was the shame of being pregnant outside marriage that women were often brought there surreptitiously. Peter Mulryan, who grew up in the home, learned decades later that his mother was six months pregnant when she was taken by bicycle from her home under the cover of darkness. The local priest arranged it after telling her father she was 'causing a scandal in the parish.' Mothers and their children carried that stigma most of their lives. But there was no accountability for the men who got them pregnant, whether by romantic encounter, rape or incest. More shocking, though, was the high number of deaths Corless found. When she searched the local cemetery for a plot for the home's babies, she found nothing. Around the time Corless was unearthing the sad history, Anna Corrigan was in Dublin discovering a secret of her own. Corrigan, raised as an only child, vaguely remembered a time as a girl when her uncle was angry at her mother and blurted out that she had given birth to two sons. To this day, she's unsure if it's a memory or dream. While researching her late father's traumatic childhood confined in an industrial school for abandoned, orphaned or troubled children, she asked a woman helping her for any records about her deceased mom. Corrigan was devastated when she got the news: before she was born, her mother had two boys in the Tuam home. 'I cried for brothers I didn't know, because now I had siblings, but I never knew them,' she said. Her mother never spoke a word about it. A 1947 inspection record provided insights to a crowded and deadly environment. Twelve of 31 infants in a nursery were emaciated. Other children were described as 'delicate,' 'wasted,' or with 'wizened limbs.' Corrigan's brother, John Dolan, weighed almost 9 pounds when he was born but was described as 'a miserable, emaciated child with voracious appetite and no control over his bodily functions, probably mental defective.' He died two months later in a measles outbreak. Despite a high death rate, the report said infants were well cared for and diets were excellent. Corrigan's brother, William, was born in May 1950 and listed as dying about eight months later. There was no death certificate, though, and his date of birth was altered on the ledger, which was sometimes done to mask adoptions, Corrigan said. Ireland was very poor at the time and infant mortality rates were high. Some 9,000 babies — or 15% — died in 18 mother and baby homes that were open as late as 1998, a government commission found. In the 1930s and 1940s, more than 40% of children died some years in the homes before their first birthday. Tuam recorded the highest death percentage before closing in 1961. Nearly a third of the children died there. In a hunt for graves, the cemetery caretaker led Corless across the street to the neighborhood and playground where the home once stood. A well-tended garden with flowers, a grotto and Virgin Mary statue was walled off in the corner. It was created by a couple living next door to memorialise the place Hopkins found the bones. Some were thought to be famine remains. But that was before Corless discovered the garden sat atop the septic tank installed after the famine. She wondered if the nuns had used the tank as a convenient burial place after it went out of service in 1937, hidden behind the home's 10-foot-high walls. 'It saved them admitting that so, so many babies were dying,' she said. 'Nobody knew what they were doing.' When she published her article in the Journal of the Old Tuam Society in 2012, she braced for outrage. Instead, she heard almost nothing. That changed, though, after Corrigan, who had been busy pursuing records and contacting officials from the prime minister to the police, found Corless. Corrigan connected her with journalist Alison O'Reilly and the international media took notice after her May 25, 2014, article on the Sunday front page of the Irish Mail with the headline: 'A Mass Grave of 800 Babies.' The article caused a firestorm, followed by some blowback. Some news outlets, including The Associated Press, highlighted sensational reporting and questioned whether a septic tank could have been used as a grave. The Bon Secours sisters hired public relations consultant Terry Prone, who tried to steer journalists away. 'If you come here you'll find no mass grave,' she said in an email to a French TV company. 'No evidence that children were ever so buried and a local police force casting their eyes to heaven and saying, 'Yeah a few bones were found — but this was an area where famine victims were buried. So?'' Despite the doubters, there was widespread outrage. Corless was inundated by people looking for relatives on the list of 796 deaths she compiled. Those reared with the stain of being 'illegitimate' found their voice. Mulryan, who lived in the home until he was 4½, spoke about being abused as a foster child working on a farm, shoeless for much of the year, barely schooled, underfed and starved for kindness. 'We were afraid to open our mouths, you know, we were told to mind our own business,' Mulryan said. 'It's a disgrace. This church and the state had so much power, they could do what they liked and there was nobody to question them.' Then-Prime Minister Enda Kenny said the children were treated as an 'inferior subspecies' as he announced an investigation into mother and baby homes. When a test excavation confirmed in 2017 that skeletons of babies and toddlers were in the old septic tank, Kenny dubbed it a 'chamber of horrors.' Pope Francis acknowledged the scandal during his 2018 visit to Ireland when he apologised for church 'crimes' that included child abuse and forcing unmarried mothers to give up their children. It took five years before the government probe primarily blamed the children's fathers and women's families in its expansive 2021 report. The state and churches played a supporting role in the harsh treatment, but it noted the institutions, despite their failings, provided a refuge when families would not. Some survivors saw the report as a damning vindication while others branded it a whitewash. Prime Minister Micheál Martin apologised, saying mothers and children paid a terrible price for the nation's 'perverse religious morality.' 'The shame was not theirs — it was ours,' Martin said. The Bon Secours sisters offered a profound apology and acknowledged children were disrespectfully buried. 'We failed to respect the inherent dignity of the women and children,' Sister Eileen O'Connor said. 'We failed to offer them the compassion that they so badly needed.' The dig When a crew including forensic scientists and archaeologists began digging at the site two weeks ago, Corless was 'on a different planet,' amazed the work was underway after so many years. It is expected to take two years to collect bones, many of which are commingled, sort them and use DNA to try to identify them with relatives like Corrigan. Dig director Daniel MacSweeney, who previously worked for the International Committee of Red Cross to identify missing persons in conflict zones in Afghanistan and Lebanon, said it is a uniquely difficult undertaking. 'We cannot underestimate the complexity of the task before us, the challenging nature of the site as you will see, the age of the remains, the location of the burials, the dearth of information about these children and their lives,' MacSweeney said. Nearly 100 people, some from the U.S., Britain, Australia, and Canada, have either provided DNA or contacted them about doing so. Some people in town believe the remains should be left undisturbed. Patrick McDonagh, who grew up in the neighborhood, said a priest had blessed the ground after Hopkins' discovery and Masses were held there regularly. 'It should be left as it is,' McDonagh said. 'It was always a graveyard.' A week before ground was broken, a bus delivered a group of the home's aging survivors and relatives of mothers who toiled there to the neighborhood of rowhouses that ring the playground and memorial garden. A passageway between two homes led them through a gate in metal fencing erected to hide the site that has taken on an industrial look. Beyond grass where children once played — and beneath which children may be buried — were storage containers, a dumpster and an excavator poised for digging. It would be their last chance to see it before it's torn up and — maybe — the bones of their kin recovered so they can be properly buried. Corrigan, who likes to say that justice delayed Irish-style is 'delay, deny 'til we all go home and die,' hopes each child is found. 'They were denied dignity in life, and they were denied dignity and respect in death,' she said. 'So we're hoping that today maybe will be the start of hearing them because I think they've been crying for an awful long time to be heard.' A timeline of developments related to Ireland's network of mother and baby homes. 1800s 1846 — The Tuam workhouse opens on six acres to house 800 'inmates' who were destitute. 1900s 1921 — County Galway opens a mother and baby home in a former workhouse in Glenamaddy that is run by Bon Secours Sisters, a Catholic religious order. 1922-23 — The home is occupied by British troops during the Irish Civil War. Six members of an Irish Republican Army faction that opposed the treaty ending the war were executed there in 1923. 1925 — The Children's Home in Glenamaddy closes and reopens in the converted Tuam workhouse as a home for. 1961 — The Tuam home closes. 1970s — Two boys discover bones in an underground chamber on the grounds of the derelict home. Locals believe the grave includes victims of the Irish famine and create a memorial garden. 2000s 2012 — Local historian Catherine Corless publishes an article in the Journal of the Old Tuam Society that reveals many children died in the home. She later finds records of 796 deaths with no burial records. She reveals that the bones found in the 1970s were in the location of a defunct septic tank. May 2014 — The Irish Mail publishes a story about nearly 800 unaccounted dead babies at the home and the possibility some are buried in the sewage tank. International news coverage leads to a public outcry. June 2014 — The Irish government announces it will investigate mother and baby homes across Ireland, including Tuam. February 2015 — The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes is formally established. March 2017 — A test excavation by the commission confirms 'significant quantities' of human remains of infants in underground chambers at the Tuam site. Tests show they ranged from 35 weeks to three years old. 2018 — The Irish government pledges to carry out a full forensic excavation and enact legislation to allow for the recovery and potential identification of remains. October 2018 — Government officially approves a full forensic excavation of the Tuam site. The cost is estimated at 6—13 million ($7-15 million) euros. January 2021 — The Commission's final report finds that about 9,000 children died in 18 institutions, including Tuam, from 1922 to 1998. Prime Minister Micheál Martin issues a state apology. 2022 — Ireland passes the Institutional Burials Act, giving legal authority to excavate, recover, and identify remains from sites such as Tuam. 2023 — The Director of Authorised Intervention is established to oversee the Tuam excavation. June 11, 2025 — The site is secured, and pre-excavation work begins. July 14, 2025 — The excavation team begins its dig to recover remains.
The Independent
40 minutes ago
- The Independent
Lithuania Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas steps down after investigations and protests
Lithuania Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas stepped down on Thursday following investigations into his business dealings that prompted protests in the Baltic country 's capital calling for his resignation. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda announced Paluckas' resignation to the media on Thursday morning. A spokesperson for Paluckas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Paluckas, a newly established leader of the center-left Social Democrats, ascended to the role late last year after a three-party coalition formed following parliamentary elections in October. His entire cabinet is now expected also to resign, potentially leaving the country without an effective government weeks before Russia holds joint military exercises with neighboring Belarus. Lithuanian foreign policy is unlikely to change as a result of the government shakeup. Nausėda, who was elected separately, is the country's face on the world stage and has been one of the most stalwart supporters of Ukraine in its fight against invading Russian forces. Paluckas has recently been dogged by media investigations into his business and financial dealings. Several media outlets published investigations in July regarding Paluckas' past and present ventures and alleged mishandlings, including ones more than a decade ago. The Baltic country's anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies subsequently launched their own probes. In a devastating blow to his reputation, the media also revealed that Paluckas never paid a significant part of a 16,500 euro fine ($19,039) in connection with a 2012 criminal case dubbed the 'rat poison scandal.' Paluckas was convicted of mishandling the bidding process for Vilnius' rat extermination services while serving as the capital city's municipality administration director. Judges for the country's top court in 2012 ruled that he abused his official position by illegally granting privileges to the company that offered the highest price in the bid. He was also sentenced to two years behind bars, but the sentence was suspended for one year and he ultimately was never imprisoned. The Social Democratic party leader denied any wrongdoing regarding his business affairs, labeling the criticism as part of a 'coordinated attack' by political opponents. He resigned before the opposition could formally launch impeachment proceedings. New coalition talks are expected to start shortly to form a new cabinet.
The Sun
41 minutes ago
- The Sun
Cops still hunt for HEAD of mystery decapitated man found dumped in Brit hols hotspot as new theory on killing emerges
COPS are still hunting for the head of a decapitated man mysteriously found dumped in the middle of the street in central Lisbon. The corpse was found on Patio Salema, a narrow, dead-end street in the historic centre of the popular British holiday destination. 3 3 The street is behind the Lisbon Coliseum and just a stone's throw from many of the city's main tourist sites and picturesque squares. Shockingly, a police source said the man's head was "not at the scene" and they are still trying to find it. The body has now reportedly been identified as belonging to an undocumented African man. But the circumstances behind his decapitation are still a mystery to cops. A new theory has emerged as to what may have happened to the man following the gruesome find. Portuguese Judicial Police (PJ) took over the investigation and is now looking into the possibility of a crime linked to drug trafficking and territorial disputes, Correio reports. Authorities were alerted early on Wednesday, after which they rushed to the scene and cordoned off the street to investigate. The narrow alleyway leads down to Rossio, one of the main squares for tourists and locals alike. Gustavo Silva, a commentator for CNN Portugal, said that this type of crime "occurs in a very specific context". He issued a warning to the public: "It's macabre and heinous, but people should remain calm." Criminal psychology expert Carlos Alberto Poiares told Sic Noticias: "One thing is clear: the crime wasn't committed there; the body was dumped there. "If he had been decapitated there, the scenario would certainly have been different." Bizarrely, just hours earlier, the body of a woman was found in the boot of a car nearby. The woman in her 50s was discovered in Costa da Caparica on the outskirts of the capital. The body was found when passersby on the beach noticed a strong smell coming from the car. It is believed the woman was getting changed in the boot of the car which had no backseats while she suffered a heart attack. Her belongings were found in the car, suggesting she may have been living inside it. Lisbon is known as one of the safest European capitals with a very low crime rate. 3
