Amy and Nicole Rice
Gardai are closing in on the criminals responsible for the horrific assaults on Amy and Nicole Rice in May.
The sisters came forward back in May to tell the story of how they were brutally attacked by two men they met on Facebook in a 20-hour ordeal in Newbridge.
The two men responsible, who Gardai believe are from Crumlin and Tallaght, fled overseas after the incident but it is believed they are back in the country and on the brink of arrest.
"It would be best if these individuals gave themselves up so that detectives can speak to them and get to hear what they have to say about this matter," a senior source pointed out to independent.ie.
"These are heavy duty fellas with links to drugs gangs in south Dublin," the source said.
"They have significant criminal connections and gardai have been monitoring the safety of the injured parties in this case."
The source added that the property where the assaults happened has been forensically examined by gardai and key evidence has been obtained.
The sisters told the Herald about their horrendous experience on the night of May 14.
The pair agreed to meet with two men who they initially spoke to through Facebook in April.
Amy said the pair seemed nice, and they arranged to travel to Newbridge, Co Kildare for a drink. They met the two men, aged 25 and 30, at a bus stop and were brought to an apartment in Newbridge town centre shortly after 7.30pm.
Soon after, Amy said one of the men, who is originally from Crumlin, started “acting weird”.
“His demeanour changed and he started talking about how he had been in jail before,” she said.
“They started to get aggressive, and my sister got up to leave at about 8pm. One of them pulled her hair, pushed her to the ground and started kicking her in the head.”
The brave young woman attempted to intervene to save her younger sister but the other man started to pummel her in a frenzied attack.
“They tied us up with rags and put them on our mouths and just kept laughing and laughing as they beat us up,” Amy said.
The sisters say the men worked themselves into a frenzy and asked them to ring “someone with money to pay a ransom” which would set them free.
But when the sisters said they didn’t have any money in their family, they were beaten further.
“They thought it was hilarious, they started ringing this woman and had her on loudspeaker and she kept saying ‘let me hear them scream’.
“Nicole made a run to the corridor outside and fell on the stairs trying to get away and passed out at the bottom.
“They thought she was dead and started ringing people on the phone and saying they needed to dig holes in the Wicklow mountains as they didn’t know what to do with these girls.”
Amy says the last thing she remembered was her sister’s body lying at the bottom of the stairs before she blacked out during another beating.
“I was so scared,” said brave Amy. “I thought we were going to die, I was full sure they were going to kill us.”
Nicole woke up hours later in bed beside her sister. She said as she was not tied up she tried to untie her sister but the men, who were sleeping beside them, woke and the assaults started again.
“They started lining us up against the wall and taking pictures and sending to friends what they had done to us. They were really proud of it.
“They eventually let us go at about 3pm in the afternoon and said if we went to the guards they would kill us and our family.
“They had rung people and found out information about us – they knew our dad was in hospital and everything.”
Covered in blood, the sisters ran out of the apartment and a man, driving by with two children, stopped and took them straight to hospital.
The sisters said they were still receiving threats from the men in hospital. The pair took a number of tests and scans and they believe they may have been drugged on the night of their ordeal.
Amy suffered a suspected fractured jaw. Nicole received a broken nose.
Both siblings suffered severe head and facial injuries.