The Missing Persons Thread

[SGR]

This one's for @Trollheart

The Disappearance Of Trevor Deely (2000)

Trevor Deely - Irish - Male - Dublin, Ireland - missing since 12/08/2000 - age 22 at the time of disappearance

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On 8 December 2000, Irishman Trevor Deely disappeared in Dublin. He had been walking home around 4 a.m. from his work Christmas party, having stopped at his office on the way to retrieve an umbrella and arrange certain things for his shift the next day. He was seen on a security camera entering and leaving his office building. The footage shows him speaking to a man dressed in black before he entered the building. This man has never been identified. Deely was later seen on another security camera in front of a bank he passed on Haddington Road as he headed home on foot, which is the last image that exists of him. Despite continuous police investigations, his disappearance remains a mystery.

Other resources:

Trevor Deely disappearance: Garda investigation identifies man caught on CCTV

An Uncharted Journey: The Vanishing of Trevor Deely

The Chilling Disappearance of Trevor Deely

The Disappearance of Trevor Deely -- Reddit Discussion Thread (2022)

Information, locations and aerial images relevant to the disappearance

Personal speculation


As noted in the first 'Other resources' link I posted - one of the big mysteries of this case has recently been put to rest. The man caught on CCTV walking a fair distance behind Trevor Deely has finally been identified and all parties (family and police) are satisfied that he had nothing to do with Trevor Deely's disappearance. That being said, the man who talked to Trevor Deely outside of the building has yet to be identified - he was not the same man who was walking behind Trevor. I'm going to go out on a limb here though and speculate that the man who talked to Trevor had nothing to do with his disappearance. The man was caught on CCTV standing outisde the building gate for 30 minutes prior to Deely's arrival, and left briefly after Deely entered the building. There was a taxi strike in Dublin at the time, so the man may have simply been waiting for someone to arrive to pick him up. It would be nice if the police could identify him and clear him completely, but I just doubt he had anything to do with Deely's disappearance.

So where does that leave us? Well, Trevor had been drinking, and you can tell he's slightly drunk in the CCTV footage. A popular theory at the time was that he fell in the Dodder river, and was too intoxicated to get out before accidentally drowning. There's a phenomenon of this occuring that has led to theories of a 'Smiley Face Killer' - the profile is almost always the same, a young man, popular, athletic, college-aged, goes out with friends drinking and walks home alone - and ends up drowning in a body of water. Near the body of water is grafitti of a smiley face. I don't buy the killer theory, I think smiley faces are just common grafitti expressions, and because bodies of water generally attract people, it makes sense that grafitti will end up near the body of water. While I think it's technically possible Trevor went and got some smokes, decided to have a smoke by the Dodder before going home, and ended up falling in and drowning, based on my understanding of the area and the river, it would be very, very difficult to just fall in (it's walled off essentially). Still, we have no evidence to back up that idea - not even his clothes or his umbrella (seen in the CCTV footage) were ever found.

There's also the idea that Trevor was murdered. There were known criminal drug/prostitution gangs in the area - maybe Trevor, around 4 in the morning, saw something he wasn't supposed to see (or maybe he talked/flirted with the wrong woman when he was at the bar), and was murdered and disposed of as a result. That would explain why nothing, not even his clothes or umbrella, ever turned up. At the time, the streets were being cleaned up in a haste, which would include dumpsters and garbage bins, as 4 days after Trevor disappeared, then US President Bill Clinton was scheduled to visit. It's possible Trevor encountered the wrong people, was murdered, and was stuffed in a dumpster that was shortly after hastily emptied along with all the others, en route to a landfill, which would explain why his body and clothing articles have never been found.

I suppose there's a couple other theories, but there's not much use elaborating on them without any evidence.

• He was accidentally killed by a drunk motorist, who decided to stuff the body in his trunk and dispose of it later (this is a populated area though, so you'd think there'd be at least one witness to this)
• Someone offered him a ride to his place and abducted/killed him. Though Trevor wasn't that far from his home, maybe he accepted because it was raining hard. Possible, but what are the chances you'd run into an opportunistic murdering psychopath driving around at 4am at night?

The only other theory I can come up with is suicide. I mentioned it would be very difficult for him to 'accidentally' fall in the Dodder, or accidentally fall and drown in the nearby sea. But it could be done if it was intentional. Trevor had recently taken a trip to Alaska to visit a girl he had met in Dublin, but apparently it didn't go well and she rebuffed his advances. Maybe this crushed him emotionally and he decided to end it all and his body was washed out to sea? Still, we run into the same problem as the other theories - no evidence. Also, why would he take a detour to his work building at 3:30am after drinking to read his e-mails and plan for tomorrow if he was planning to kill himself the same night? That would indicate that if he did decide to take his own life, it would've been completely spontaneous, and what I do know about Trevor would lead me to believe that wasn't exactly fitting with his behavior.

It's like this guy fell off the face of the Earth - and I'm honestly not sure how I'd rank the theories in terms of likelihood. I suppose I'd be keen to believe he was murdered and disposed of as the most likely theory. But even that I have a difficult time believing.

I'm hoping @Trollheart is somewhat familiar with this case and can perhaps provide some additional Irish insight.

What do you think after reviewing the details of the case?


Any tips or information?
Please call Crimestoppers, who work with An Garda Síochána, at 1-800-250-025