https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-41254303.html
Described as “giddy” and “daft”, nobody thought Yousef Palani could murder and maim. And yet he did.
His gruesome murder and beheading of two gay men in Sligo last year, for which he was handed down two life sentences, has shocked and sickened a nation.
It was the worst homophobic attack in the history of the State.
Palani’s decision to plead guilty, to first stabbing Anthony Burke and then murdering Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee, at least saved their families from having to sit through what would have been undoubtedly a traumatic trial.
Some suspect his decision was self-serving, and not made out of any consideration for his victims or their families.
Perhaps it was the weight of damning evidence against him. The prosecution’s book of evidence was so big it had to go to the printing section of Garda Headquarters in Phoenix Park.
The sentencing of the 23-year-old heard he was motivated by his hatred of and prejudice towards homosexual men.
Were there signs missed?
What kind of person commits such extreme acts of violence?
Always messing
The second eldest of eight children of an Iraqi-Kurdish family, Palani came to Ireland in 2006 under a UN protection programme when he was six years old. The family was provided with accommodation by the State in Sligo.
The house the family currently occupies in Markievicz Heights lies in the shadow of the GAA’s Markievicz Park and is owned by the sporting organisation.
Markievicz Heights is a mature housing estate of about 45 homes with a low turnover of residents. People have reared their families there and now welcome their grandchildren.
The Residents’ Association spend between €5,000-€6,000 a year on its upkeep. The weed-filled front gutters of the Palani house are incongruous amidst the surrounding manicured gardens and flowerbeds.
Neighbourly relations were strained from the get-go.
When Palani was aged 10 or 11, local children invited him over to play football on the green. When he did, he began kicking the other children, not the football.
It resulted in angry confrontations between parents and set the tone for all future interactions. The residents insist they are not racist, pointing to the fact they live amicably alongside Indian and Chinese neighbours.
“We're not racist. We just want the people to come and live here peacefully,” they told the Irish Examiner.
The Palanis did not respond to requests for comment.
Palani’s father was often seen doing karate moves in the middle of the entrance to the estate.
He would run bare-chested around Cairns Hill every day – often backwards - even in the depths of winter, often with his wife running after him in her niqab.
While many locals living in the wider area found this eccentric, amusing even, the residents of Markievicz Heights say it was intimidating for them.
“It’s not that they were causing trouble all the time, but they would intimidate us subtly,” said one neighbour, speaking to this newspaper on condition of anonymity.
Mr Palani has not been seen publicly since his son’s arrest last year.
No family members ever attended any of his court appearances in person at Sligo District Court.
Palani moved on to secondary school at the nearby Summerhill College and instantly marked himself out as a troublemaker by pulling the sinks off the walls of the toilets in his first term.
He certainly annoyed senior management but other teachers “actually liked the guy”.
He hung around with one other foreign national student and the pair were inseparable.
“You got them as a pair, daft but always polite,” said a former teacher.
They described Palani as “extremely intellectually challenged” combined with absolutely no interest in learning.
He never had his homework done, and was “always messing.”
“That guy Yousef was trouble from day one. And that’s a fact,” said one resident.
“And the guards did nothing about him. I’m not saying he was doing crimes that he should have been locked up for, but he was certainly getting away with stuff.”
Neighbours insist Palani was known to the Gardaí, with one having witnessed him being arrested and taken out of the house in handcuffs over criminal damage allegations in the town.
He was never formally charged with a crime, however, and never appeared before the local district court.
Criminologist and co-host of the Real Lives Untold podcast Sarah O’Connor said: “Though Yousef Palani didn't have an official history of violence or didn’t officially come to the attention of the gardaí, there certainly seems to have been a pattern of anti-social behaviour on his part witnessed by people in the community and teachers that raised concern.
“He struggled in school, was described as extremely intellectually challenged, identified as a troublemaker, a messer, dropped out of college but that doesn't necessarily explain this huge leap from being anti-social to going on a killing spree," she said.
When former teachers heard who was arrested for the double murders they were incredulous.
“I couldn’t believe it. It just wasn’t him – he was giddy but wasn’t cruel or nasty,” one said.
In the four years after he left school, little is known of Palani’s life. Garda sources say he attended the local IT but soon dropped out.
It’s believed he was unemployed and was still living in the family home when he began his attacks.
One neighbour said he wasn’t seen “for months” before the killings and even noticed his absence, commenting to their daughter about him.
The neighbour said Palani reappeared just weeks before he killed the two men.
This is significant says O’Connor.
“Was this a plot he hatched himself? Was what happened the manifestation of repressed homosexuality and the creation of a narrative in his own head over a period of time - he said he heard voices in his head telling him to carry out the attacks.
"He claims he is not gay but there is evidence that he did engage in sexual activity with at least one of his victims,” she said.
In their book Spree Killers, FBI Investigator Mark Safarik and forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland define a spree killing as “a string of at least three murders in at least two locations, arising from a key precipitating incident that continues to fuel the need to kill, and the murders occur fairly close in time".
Like mass murderers, spree killers often do not blend well into their communities.
They often stand out as different or strange. The type of person you might get an uncomfortable feeling around even if you cannot articulate quite why.
Yousef Palani first tried to tie up and kill Anthony Burke on April 9 but failed. He stabbed him in a fit of rage after Burke put him out of his house after feeling uncomfortable in his presence.
Was this a key precipitating incident that fuelled Palani’s murder of Aidan Moffitt the very next day?
When neighbours first heard the Gardaí were at Yousef Palani’s house, they were not surprised. Their first thought was that somebody had been killed in the house.
“That was our first assumption. So that will tell you something,” said a resident.
According to Safarik and Ramsland, the number one precipitating event for a spree killer is a significant loss or failure, such as a breakdown of a relationship.
Palani was seen by neighbours in TikTok videos, since deleted, interacting with a transwoman from Thailand.
Neighbours never saw Palani with any girlfriends.
A member of the Muslim community in Sligo described Palani and his family as “very shy” people who kept to themselves.
They also confirmed the family hasn’t attended the local mosque since the killings.
Motive
There are five different motives attributed to spree killings: anger/revenge, ideological reasons, desperation, mental illness or thrill.
Investigators were satisfied he wasn’t radicalised. He was driven by “hostility and prejudice” towards gay men. He denied being gay himself.
He told Gardaí he would have gone on to kill more people if they hadn’t stopped him.
Garda sources say there were “at least half a dozen” more intended victims.
Mental illness was ruled out because the sentencing hearing heard Gardaí believed he exaggerated his mental health claims about ‘voices’.
“He couldn’t get a psychiatrist in the country to say he was insane,” said one source with knowledge of the investigation.
The category of desperation involves killers who seem to snap.
Their sense of “nothing to lose” fuels their rush.
There is no sense that Palani suddenly snapped here.
Unless the killer falls into the desperate category, spree killings are pre-planned and very intentional. Control brings satisfaction.
The killings all take place within a close geographical area, within the killer’s comfort zone. Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee both lived less than two miles from Palani’s home.
The killings were premeditated, and the victims were identified and lured on social media.
Carefully crafted questions were put to each man beforehand to ensure they were Irish and living alone.
“He certainly had a precise Modus Operandi,” says O’Connor.
“He made contact with his victims and potential victims the same way, he was targeting gay men, all Irish, all living alone using an LGBT app to ensnare them.
"There was a very short cooling off period before he struck again and again and gardaí believe he would have continued if he wasn't tracked down,” she says.
Thrill killings involve excessive and sadistic violence such as torturing people and humiliating them.
“The murders were savage - he tied up his victims, stabbed them, mutilated their bodies. One of the victims was stabbed 43 times and was decapitated,” says O’Connor.
Experienced ambulance crews who attended the murder scenes of Palani’s victims were shaken to the core by what they saw.
In the case of Mr Moffitt, he beheaded him and placed the head on the bed facing the door.
She believes this could have been a copycat spree as there are numerous notorious serial killers who were motivated by homophobia.
“It looks like this prejudice, repression, power and control would have played a significant role in driving Palani,” she says.
“There was a clear pattern, he wanted to send a message, he may have been seeking notoriety on a global stage in his own mind, enjoying the panic his savagery was stirring up,” she adds.
According to one neighbour, on the Sunday night of April 10 – by which time Aidan Moffitt lay dead in his home just over a mile away – Yousef was seen getting out of the back of a car “laughing and joking” along with two of his siblings.
He was carrying on as normal.
Neighbours traumatised
Markievicz Heights swarmed with squad cars and unmarked cars after Palani’s first victim, Anthony Burke, helped Gardaí identify him as a suspect on the night of April 13.
Neighbours described their panic at being woken from their beds at 1.30am to be greeted by scenes worthy of any Hollywood action-thriller on their doorsteps.
Palani family members were called out one by one, starting with the youngest children.
A huge spotlight was beamed into the back of the house in case Palani tried to escape out a rear window.
The armed response unit went into the house and, according to neighbours, found bloodstained clothes and a knife “within minutes”.
The house was immediately sealed off as a crime scene and Palani was arrested.
A senior Garda source has confirmed that “€350,000-plus” found hidden in a suitcase in an upstairs bedroom that night is being investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau.
They are satisfied it is “not criminally linked” and are determining if a family could accumulate that amount of money solely on social welfare payments alone, as neither parent is employed.
They are investigating the theory that the Palani family could have brought the sum into the country with them when they first came here.
They have ruled out any terrorist financing.
“The terror we felt when he was arrested needs to be made public,” said one neighbour, who became visibly upset as she recalled what happened.
“Eight to ten armed Gardaí came running through our house. They were armed, had big boots and visors and were running out the back. They asked for the keys to my car and told us to leave, and leave our house unlocked, in the dead of night,” the neighbour said.
“All the Garda protection afterwards was for them, not us. We were put out of our homes at 2am and we were told to go to the barracks and leave our houses unlocked. Nobody has come to see how any of us are since,” they said.
This newspaper has seen 15 letters from residents sent to a solicitor outlining their safety concerns since Palani’s arrest.
They have reported cars watching the house and are afraid of reprisals.
Neighbours are highly critical of the owners of the house, the GAA, for not engaging with them over the years.
“There’s no due diligence done and now we have ended up with a murderer living beside us,” they said.
“The GAA are a community organisation but they forgot about our community,” said another resident.
The GAA did not respond to requests for comment.
Other people in positions of leadership in the fields of politics, religion and the LGBTQ+ community in Sligo have also chosen to remain silent in the aftermath of the killings and declined to comment.
There is no current Imam in Sligo.
The Irish Council of Imams condemned the killings at the time, saying that “murder is a horrific crime that cannot be justified by any means irrespective of the alleged motive or the identity of the perpetrator. Islam values and cherishes human life.”
