Pat Gillane
AN evil trucker who tried to have his wife murdered is now a booming millionaire thanks to delivering groceries to supermarket shelves.
Scheming Pat Gillane tried to hire two men to kill his pregnant wife, who was later found stabbed and shot. Her body was discovered dumped in the boot of her car.
Gillane walked free from jail after just six years and now runs a company that has trucks delivering groceries around the country for German discount chain Lidl.
One of Pat Gillane's fleet of delivery trucks
Gillane now employs 21 people in his company, including his son John (23), and has named his company after their two initials – P&J Gillane.
A spokesman for the supermarket confirmed Gillane’s company worked for them but said: “It is company policy not to comment in this area of the business.”
Gillane (53) was jailed in December 1997 after two men told his trial how he tried to hire them to kill Philomena.
The shameless haulier even took part in the St Patrick’s Day parade in Gort, Co. Galway, earlier this year, when he received a trophy for having one of the best floats.
Figures seen by the Sunday World show that Gillane paid out €441,315 in wages last year.
Gillane’s missing wife Philomena, who was seven months pregnant, was found shot and stabbed in the boot of a car in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, in a case that shocked the nation.
Philomena Gillane
Farmer and part-time truck driver Gillane became the first person in Ireland to be convicted of soliciting to murder and served six years in prison.
Love cheat Gillane, who admitted he had an affair with Philomena’s younger sister Bridie, previously told the Sunday World he still loves his slain wife.
“I visit her grave every two weeks,” he told told us.
But Gillane admitted he has no contact with his in-laws.
Two of Philomena’s brothers, the Gordons, confronted Gillane at his farmhouse in the lead-up to his trial. In a confrontation, Gillane’s brother Kevin injured one of the Gordons with a slash hook.
Philomena’s mother Nonie (below) dropped dead at the trial of a heart attack, while her sister Bridie – with whom Gillane had the affair – said at the time that his eight-year sentence was not long enough.
“I have no contact with them,” Gillane confessed.
He added: “I have been treated with the utmost of respect by the people of Gort, everywhere I go.
“I will help people if I can.
“Other people will use bad language about me and tell you to stay away from me. But I have never raised my voice to anyone.”
Gillane started a haulage company last year and is running 20 large articulated lorries from his homestead near Gort.
John Gillane was just a baby when his mother, who worked as a cook in St Colmcille’s Hospital in Dublin, disappeared and was murdered in May 1994.
Gillane was released from prison December 2003.
He was convicted of soliciting to murder after a homeless man in Dublin recognised his picture in the media as the husband of the missing nurse.
The man claimed Gillane had approached him on Dublin’s James’s Street and asked him and his friend to “do away” with his wife.
“The two thugs that ended up against me, I don’t know why they did it,” Gillane later said.
When asked who he thought was responsible for Philomena’s death, he replied: “I have my suspicions, but I don’t want to say.”
Gillane added, “I’ve had a hard run of it.” When asked if he had a difficult time serving his sentence in Wheatfield prison, he replied “not at all”.
He is now travelling Ireland, delivering groceries in his trucks.
“I am putting in extremely long hours at the moment,” he sighed.
“I am running a successful business at the minute.
“We have a lot of people employed... it’s not easy.”
The discovery of Philomena’s body in the boot of her car outside Athlone railway station (below) on May 18 1994 shocked the nation.
Philomena (42), from Beechlawn, near the village of Caltra, Co. Galway, had been missing for a week. She had been shot in the back and stabbed six times.
She was also living a tortured existence. Just before Christmas 1993, when she was three months pregnant, she discovered that her husband had been having an affair with her younger sister, Bridie.
The discovery led to numerous rows and she consulted lawyers about a separation in the spring of 1994.
Philomena wanted custody of their son, maintenance payments and half the value of the Gillane farm.
The subsequent investigation into Philomena’s death suggested it was likely she was killed in the driveway of her home.
On May 20, a homeless man in Dublin called into the Bridewell Garda Station, insisting the picture of the grieving widower was the same man who approached him and a friend on James’s Street the previous January with a chilling request.
Christy Bolger and Michael Doyle stated that Gillane asked them to “kill a woman who worked in a hospital”.
When they asked the man to explain further, he said the woman he wanted killed was his wife.
“We asked why, and he said she was threatening to take everything he had.”
When arrested in June 1995, Gillane dismissed the claim, saying Bolger and Doyle were “only winos from Dublin, they’ll do anything for a drink”.
But their evidence was strong enough to see Gillane brought before the Circuit Criminal Court in September 1996, charged with soliciting the two men to murder his wife.