David Lawler

Around 3.30am, 41-year-old, Marilyn Rynn, was walking through a short cut near her home, after her work Christmas party, when she was brutally attacked, raped and murdered. Her naked body was eventually discovered on January 7 by a Garda tracker dog in bushes at Tolka Valley Park and a massive investigation began. The killing shocked the whole country. Detectives interviewed more than 2,500 people, took 1,000 statements and analysed the DNA from blood tests of 300 possible suspects. Her killer, David Lawler, had used the Internet to access information on body fluids and how long they could survive in the open without degrading, according to senior gardai. He gave gardai a blood sample, believing that his DNA would have been destroyed by the time his victim's body was discovered. However, the weather had been the coldest in 14 years and her body actually froze, so the DNA was protected. Lawler famously became the first person in the history of the State to be jailed on DNA evidence.