Murder suspect Kieran McLaughlin narrowly escaped death on Bloody Sunday.
On the run: Kieran McLaughlin.
The 58-year-old has been on the run since police named him as the man they wanted to speak to in relation to last week’s murder of Barry McCrory.
The 35-year-old father-of-one was shot dead by a lone gunman in a upstairs flat in Shipquay Street on Thursday morning.
After a major search operation in the Galliagh area of Derry that night failed to locate him, police named McLaughlin as their main suspect but a cross-border manhunt has failed to find him.
McLaughlin had been with his friend Gerard Donaghy – one of those shot dead on the ill-fated 1972 march – but had become separated in the Glenfada Park area when the shootings began.
In a statement to the Saville Inquiry he revealed a high velocity bullet passed through the jacket he had been wearing.
McLaughlin gave evidence in person at the Inquiry on 26 January 2004. At the time, as a member of the Real IRA, he was serving an 18 year prison sentence for the possession two sawn off shotguns, two pistols, a rifle with telescopic sight, two assault rifles, a substantial amount of ammunition and paramilitary type clothing on November 24, 2000,
He had previously served a lengthy sentence for possession of a revolver, shotgun and ammunition on February 24, 1988.
McLaughlin told the Inquiry: “I was wearing a beige Wrangler short jacket with matching trousers. I noticed that my jacket did have a bullet hole. I have no specific memory of the shot although I believe it must have been when I was running across Glenfada Park.
“Something must have made me check my jacket shortly afterwards. I have a memory of feeling that something was not right, some sort of sixth sense or survival instinct as I was running across the Park coupled with the noise of shots, very, very close behind me.
“I have been asked whether I can describe the bullet hole. My recollection is that it was a clean round hole like that made by a paper punch.”
His claim was supported by former Derry Mayor and current Policing Board member, who told the Inquiry he witnessed the bullet hole in McLaughlin’s jacket.
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