Obscure Occurrences : The Disappearance of Trevor Deely

Background

 Trevor Deely was born on 15 August 1978, in Nass, the county town of County Kildare in Ireland, to parents Michael and Ann Deely. Youngest of the couple’s four children, he learned under the close tutelage of his brother Mark and his sisters Michelle and Pamela. Trevor, a soft-spoken kid with an infectious demeanour, developed into an even-tempered teenager with a congenial personality.

Members of the Deely family, Mark, Pamela, Michael and Michele (Source: Independent.ie)

 While his older siblings were athletic in school, Trevor flourished as an athlete in mind, falling in love with arithmetic and science. His interest in numbers combined with his problem-solving tendencies inspired him to tinker with computers and audio-visual systems, developing into a hobby which initially offered him no viable career choice.

 Upon graduating high school, Trevor had begun testing the waters of Business and Economics at Waterford Institute of Technology, dropping out after the completion of the first semester due to a lack of interest. Citing his penchant for troubleshooting computers, Trevor subsequently enrolled himself in a computer course in the city of Dublin. Discovering his calling in life, he developed an instant liking for the coursework and soon, devoted all his energy towards computers. Thus, immediately after the completion of the course, he was offered three separate job opportunities, causing him to turn towards his father, Michael, for professional advice. Upon his father’s insistence, Trevor accepted a role in the IT department of Bank of Ireland Asset Management, a decision that would turn out to be an unsettling foreshadowing of the upcoming tragedy.

 Trevor worked in an office with ten other employees, who all raved about his work ethic and enthusiasm. Trevor’s manager, Daragh Tracey, described him as “the perfect employee who is reliable on the job, hungry for knowledge, and friendly with everyone at the company.” The same was true in Trevor’s personal life, as he became especially close with his elder brother Mark and his two lifelong last buddies, Glen Cullen and Conleth Loonan. Furthermore, Trevor had met a girl during his last summer in Dublin before travelling all the way to Anchorage, Alaska to visit her. Despite the bevvy of cheers and positive relationships in Trevor's life, an unexpected, unforeseen darkness was on the horizon.

 During the holiday season of December 2000, Trevor’s co-workers had set up a company Christmas party at the Hilton Hotel in Dublin. The night was filled with drinking and partying and early the next morning, at about 4 am, CCTV footage captured Trevor walking from the Bank of Ireland office towards his apartment in Ballsbridge. This would soon prove to be the last sighting of Trevor Deely before his inexplicable disappearance.

Chronology

 In May of 1999, Trevor Dealey received three job offers and decided to select an IT position at Bank of Ireland Asset Management on Wilton Terrace, at the suggestion of his father. Soon afterwards, he blended right into the working culture and formed a healthy professional relationship with his peers. After the turn of the millennium, sometime in 2000, he started renting a flat on Serpentine Avenue in Sandymount, Dublin, sharing it with two other female roommates. The trio maintained a conflict-free living situation throughout the year.

  Later that summer, Trevor met Karen, an Alaskan girl who had been visiting Ireland on a vacation from Anchorage. During her short stay in Dublin, Trevor had developed a romantic connection, but neither Trevor's family nor friends had made contact with the woman.

 On 07 October 2000, Trevor, accompanied by Mark, attended a football match in County Mayo. The brothers had spent the day with a few additional friends and as Mark mentions, it was at this moment that he saw Trevor as a peer, mentioning that Trevor showed promise in his own life, with both work and finances. This is the closest memory in their relationship, but it also proved to be their last.

 As November of 2000 was coming to a close, Trevor and Glen Cullen had a conversation about Karen, the Alaskan girl Trevor had met the previous summer. Soon afterwards, Trevor was added to Glen's Aer Lingus discount beneficiary list, accessing a free flight from Ireland to Anchorage, Alaska, intending to meet his new girlfriend.

 This point in the timeline, however, has been muddied by serval non-unanimous claims. Michael, Trevor’s father, claims that his son had more than one American girl of interest, both of whom he had met in Ireland. The former had allegedly found an email thread in Trevor’s inbox, a correspondence in which Trevor had apparently told one of the girls he was free for a few days, promising to visit her in person. The girl named Janie had replied, saying she would be busy during the specified dates. Trevor, however, had been persistent in his endeavour and had made the trip.

 On the flip side, Mark, Trevor's brother, had been confident about the vacation being an ordinary spree of relaxation that included a reconnection with his ex-girlfriend, a completely harmless coincidence.

 On 05 December 2000, Trevor returned home from Alaska before hitching a bus back to the family house in Nass. His father only saw him in passing, as he was on his way to a work meeting. Meanwhile, the exhausted traveller enthusiastically opened up about the trip to his mother, who encouraged him to come back home that weekend to share it with the family. But citing his Christmas shopping, Trevor had politely refused the offer.

 On 06 December 2000, Trevor returned to work at the Bank of Ireland as normal. Sadly, an abnormality struck the very next day. At 4 pm on December the 7^th, Trevor finished work. According to Michael Dealey, he received a call from Trevor that late afternoon, mentioning that his apartment complex had been experiencing a power cut. Later, in the early evening hours, Trevor visited his father's office, picking up prescription contact lenses sent by his brother. Unfortunately, Michael Dealey was presenting in a meeting during this time.

 Soon afterwards, Trevor and a few of his friends entered the Copper Face Jacks Nite Club, where he had the last known conversation with his father. At about 8:45 pm, the crew left the club, before going to the nearby Hilton Hotel in Charlemont Place, where his organisation’s Christmas party was being held. After enjoying a fancy dinner and live music for a couple of hours, sometime between 10:00 and 11:30 pm, Trevor received another phone call, this time from Glen Cullen. Unfortunately, due to the noisiness on Trevor’s end, the friends had been playing phone tag for the remainder of the night.

 In the early hours of 08 December 2000, at about 2:00 am, Trevor and his friends had left the Hilton before arriving at Buck Whaley's on Leeson Street, another popular Dublin nightclub. The post-party festivities lasted around an hour and a half, until 3:25 am. About 10 minutes later, Trevor had been captured on CCTV footage, in front of his office's gate number two at Wilton Terrace, having a brief conversation with a curious man dressed completely in black before heading into the office. He had also thanked Peter, the building’s security guard, for assisting him.

 Strangely, the man dressed in black had seemingly been waiting outside of gate 1 for about thirty minutes before Trevor’s arrival. At approximately 3:36 am, Trevor had asked his co-worker, Karl Pender, if he could accompany him for a coffee. At 3:37 am, further CCTV footage displayed the same black-clothed man standing outside of gate 2, this time with a second figure positioned next to him and a possible third person, covered by the shadows behind them. 

(Source: Youtube/Garda Press Office)

 At around 3:50 am, Trevor had shared a beverage with Karl, before exiting the office at 4:03 am through gate 2, now holding an umbrella on CCTV video evidence. Two minutes passed before Trevor called his friend Glen one final time, saying he'll call again later that day. This would become the last official point of contact that Trevor would make with anyone specific.

 At 4:14 am. additional surveillance footage revealed Trevor walking past what was then an AIB bank on Haddington Road, in the direction towards his Ballsbridge apartment. Thirty seconds ticked by before another passer-by entered the frame, a man dressed in black almost identical to the first shadowy figure from the Bank of Ireland's gateways. Strangely, other bystanders who were in the area at the time recalled seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Trevor walked down the street, going out of view and ending the last known sighting.

 At 9:30 am the same morning, Trevor failed to show up for work and understandably, no action was taken. On multiple occasions over the weekend days of December 9th and December 10^th, Michelle, Trevor’s sister, had made several phone calls to Trevor, each time ringing but ending up on voicemail. As Michelle later remarks, she had not been worried at the time as his cell phone was active.

 Suspicions finally arose on Monday, December 11^th, after the Bank of Ireland informed Trevor’s parents of his continued absence from work. Soon afterwards, Michael and Ann passed the information to their oldest son, Mark, who immediately rushed straight to the family home in Nass. Meanwhile, Michael raced to Trevor’s apartment, only to find his son missing. Mark had continued his investigative efforts, searching both the Copper Face Jack's Nite Club in the Ballsbridge area. But despite his best attempts, no traces were found. Eventually, Mark, accompanied by Glen, travelled back to Nass before reporting Trevor missing to the Nass Gardai Station.

 A major manhunt broke out the next day, as the Gardai searched Trevor’s flat and a sub-aqua team combed the nearby Grand Canal. Both efforts proved to be less than fruitful and the searches continued into January 2001. Fliers were handed out to the townsfolk and additional bodies of water were inspected. Furthermore, Conleth pitched in as a CCTV expert, researching partial footage from the night of his disappearance. Despite these efforts, no evidence was unearthed, eventually leaving the case in the gutter of obscurity.

Developments

 Around March of 2015, 14 years after the birth of the Mystery, the Irish Times released a special three-part series, detailing the Trevor Deely case. Later, in 2015, journalist Donal MacIntyre created an Associated documentary that displayed a never-before-seen image of unreleased CCTV footage, taken outside the Bank of Ireland. It highlighted the second and third darkness-cloaked men, standing outside the gate after Trevor enters the building.

 In December 2016, investigators reignited Trevor’s cold case with the newfound CCTV footage, sending it to specialists in the UK to decipher the forensics of Trevor’s final moments. Just four months later, in April of 2017, a company in the United Kingdom concurred that the man in black following Trevor by 30 seconds in the last CCTV shot was most likely the man in black outside of his office in the first few shots. Enhancing the initial images revealed that Trevor had indeed spoken to the shadowy figure before entering the Bank of Ireland on that fateful night, again giving the public a new clue. This is the last accurate lead uncovered in the Trevor Delly file to date.

(Source: Youtube/Garda Press Office)

 When the authorities reopened the case, they were able to quickly track down the second and third man standing near gate 2 during the 3:37 time stamp on the CCTV footage. These individuals were cleared as Trevor’s co-workers and quickly crossed off the list of suspects. The other dark-clothed man who kept reappearing in the footage, however, has never been identified.

Theories

 Trevor Delly’s disappearance occurred 22 years ago. Yet with more than two full decades of sleuthing, both professionals and amateurs have come up empty-handed, failing to secure hard evidence or expose truth beyond coincidental and circumstantial assumptions. Despite their inconclusiveness, there are a few theories that seem to be plausible when peeling the layers of this case.

A Member of the Underworld

 First and foremost, many followers of the case immediately point to Trevor’s unquestionable trip to Alaska, less than a week before his disappearance. Travelling a third of the way across the world for a girl he briefly knew makes little sense. The trip to Alaska was a nine-hour flight that spanned nine time zones and offered little tourist value for the short-term visit. So, if the vacation was truly meant to rekindle a romantic spark, it was quite an extreme gesture.  Trevor mentioned the girlfriend aspect only in passing and mostly to his friends. Glenn remarked that he had only heard of Trevor's love interest by word of mouth, neither seeing her pictures nor proof of her existence.

 While the only possible physical identification was seen by Trevor’s father through the email chain previously mentioned, the woman in the communication was called Janie instead of Karen. Investigators have neither confirmed the authenticity of the email correspondence nor confirmed the possibility of both Karen and Janie being the same person.

 The general consensus now is that Trevor’s girlfriend never existed, suggesting that the story had been created as a cover-up for some other type of business or personal quest. Rural Alaska is a mystery in and of itself, and the number of potential dark activities it keeps a secret is too vast to go through. These illegal undertakings may not be limited to money laundering, drug trafficking or gang violence. How Trevor could ever be connected to such vices is both unknown and unlikely, but his expertise with computers and mathematics makes him a valuable asset.

 In rebuttal, there is little to no likelihood that Trevor was able to keep his involvement in such multinational offences a secret and leave behind no traces. While he had been proficient in computer systems, he had no history of virtual crimes. Moreover, he was an outgoing, friendly individual and thus, pursuing a woman he liked is not unusual. Furthermore, the flight tickets were free.

 Mark Deely quoted in Irish Times article as follows;

 “The trip to Anchorage was like any young adult attempting to find paradise and Alaska was just a call diversion of hot spots like Ibiza or Lanzarote.”

 Trevor did seem enthusiastic when detailing the Alaska trip to his mother, an emotion that was probably genuine and not a cover for illicit activities. In the end, after interrogating the girl in question, the Deely family and the investigating officials classified the Alaskan trip as a red herring in the case.

Murdered by a Criminal

 Another popular hypothesis proposes that Trevor was killed that morning, on the way home to his apartment, by a ruthless Crumlin-based criminal whose identity is anonymous to everyone but to the Gardai officials. This theory found its birth from a tip given to the Gardai by an informant, who claimed that Trevor had a run-in with a Crumlin criminal before being shot, murdered and dumped in a wooded area in West Dublin.

  The Crumlin criminal had also been investigated for the unsolved murder of Synod Kelly in June 1996 and citing legal reasons, investigators had not publicised his identity. They also stated that the man had no motive for the crime and thus, they did not hold any serious weight with the tip.

 The Crumlin-based gang had been running a drug and prostitution trade in the locality of Trevor’s disappearance, at the time he was last seen. Eventually, the Gardai took this information under consideration and thoroughly searched a three-acre woodland in Chapelizod, looking for Trevor’s remains. The secret criminal was eventually cleared from the suspect list after the informant’s information was proven wrong and no traces of Trevor were found in the excavation.

 Followers of the case have suggested that Trevor’s remains could have been thrown into the waterbody. The Gardai officials have combed through countless rivers, ponds, and canals around the Dublin area, but have found no clues related to Trevor.

Men in Black

 Other theories focus on the black-clothed man from CCTV footage, offering a flurry of ideas that he could be a modernised version of the men in black conspiracy. Trevor could have possibly witnessed something supernatural during his time in Alaska, causing the man to arrive at his office that night. The theory could explain Trevor’s subtle, yet repeated, fascination with the Alaskan atmosphere and why the man in black followed him home.

 If the man in black did kidnap Trevor, it might back up the complete lack of physical DNA or evidence left behind. However, the Deely family have heavily denounced this line of thought, considering it to be intangible.

Forbidden Knowledge

 Some theories suggest that Trevor knew something he shouldn't have, causing him to be abducted by people he should not have known. What exactly this information was or who exactly the people were is impossible to crack, but it might have centred around illegal practices of a criminal nature

 After his trip from Alaska, Trevor had given a two-faced schedule to both his family and friends. He had informed his parents that he had to finish Christmas shopping the following weekend, while he had made plans to get drunk with Glen and Conleth during the aforementioned period, failing to do both. While it could have been an honest mistake, it could also have been a distraction to lead his friends and family astray while he took care of the issue at hand.

 In addition, when Trevor walked through gate 2 after engaging in a brief conversation with the man in black, he was seemingly in a hurry to get home. However, instead of grabbing the umbrella and departing, Trevor had a cup of tea with Kyle despite his asking for a few moments to finish his task. Furthermore, Trevor had logged into his computer and performed unknown actions, as if waiting for something to happen and pass the time. When Karl had been finally available, the two shared hot beverages and conversed about nothing in particular for 10 minutes before Trevor left.

 The entire exchange seems to be too odd. Why spark a conversation with a colleague at work on a Friday night, at almost 4:00 in the morning, when in a hurry to leave? Why log into the computer when there is no apparent action to perform? What was the nature of the task he performed on his computer? Unfortunately, the answer to these questions could never be known, thus making this theory inconclusive.

Conclusion

  Trevor’s case has infinite pathways but zero destinations, thus making it incredibly difficult to conclude. Since the release of the restored CCTV footage in 2015 and the false alarm search in Chapelizod, no new leads have been unearthed. However, the Gardai officials released a statement in December of 2018, claiming that they would be analysing the unidentified human remains in storage, hoping to find traces of Trevor using breakthrough DNA technology. The Initiative has provided a newfound hope for the Deely family, who have refused to consider conspiracies and had simply asked for a rational closure on Trevor’s disappearance.