Pastor who gave double murder suspect last rites prays search team 'will be guided' to missing couple’s remains
by Nicola Donnelly · Irish MirrorA pastor who gave a double murder suspect his last rites prays a search team “will be guided” to the missing couple’s remains.
Gardaí yesterday commenced their third day of combing boglands in Balrothery East, North Co Dublin, for Willie Maughan, 24, and his pregnant partner Anastasija Varslavane, 21. They were last seen on April 14, 2015.
The case was upgraded to a murder investigation following a review in September 2016. The area being searched comes after Gardaí received new information in recent weeks.
READ MORE: Family of missing William Maughan make renewed appeal for information
The search site is less than a 10-minute drive, around 12 kilometres, from a compound once owned by their suspected killer, gang boss Cornelius Price. That compound in Gormanston, Co Meath, is where Willie and Ana were last seen alive.
They were living there in a caravan and were planning on moving back to Willie’s family home in Tallaght, South Dublin, on the day they went missing. Evil Price died in a Welsh hospital in February 2023 after contracting a brain disease. He and other members of his gang are suspected of killing the couple at his fortified compound.
Reverend Dr Alex Johnson, pastor at Healing Nations Ministry in Liverpool in the UK anointed Price on his deathbed. Speaking exclusively to this paper, Reverend Johnson said: “I pray to God the search team will be guided to the right place and that they find them.”
Rev Johnson was unaware of the mobster’s background and the murders he is suspected of being involved in until this reporter informed him shortly after Price’s death.
The pastor said: “I also pray for [Willie’s parents] Joe and Helen too that they get peace and their tormentor stops it all. I do believe the remains of Willie and Ana will be found and that Joe and Helen get the closure they need after the horrible sequence of events and in closure they find hope and peace.
“I pray Joe and Helen’s hearts will be able to forgive the perpetrators as they will be judged by God and pray they take solace in this.”
On Saturday, Joe and Helen, along with their twin daughters, visited the site of the search. Joe told the Irish Mirror that the main suspect is dead but he urged those on the periphery of the gang to reveal where the bodies are buried.
Mr Maughan said: “Someone always knows…but will they feel it in their heart to tell the right people? All they have to do is make an anonymous phone call…there’ll be no DNA on them now, it’s too far gone, there’ll be nothing there now.
“Willie and Anna were murdered in the car park. We know that, everyone knows that, and we know who did it…we just can’t prove it. We just hope that one of them [involved] will open up before they die.”
Mr Maughan said he has taken hope from the search. He added: “There’s always hope. It’s encouraging because it shows the guards are not giving up either, the file is still open and it will never be hidden. There’s also hope that someone will say something or something will turn up and they will be brought to justice.”
Price, who was heavily involved in organised crime and suspected of being responsible for at least six murders, was behind much of the chaos in the lethal Drogheda feud that claimed four lives. He fled to the UK in 2020 from his compound shortly after the murder and dismemberment of Drogheda teen Keane Mulready-Woods.
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