a (Image: RTE)
The “evil” stepmother convicted of murdering a four-year-old boy in her care has been identified as 32-year-old Tegan McGhie, following a judge’s decision to lift an order prohibiting publication of her name.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott has handed McGhee, of no fixed abode, a life sentence for the murder of Mason O’Connell Conway at a property she was leasing with the boy’s father in Rathbane, Limerick city on March 16, 2021.
The youngster’s father, John Paul O’Connell (36), was previously jailed for seven years after admitting to endangerment, neglect and obstructing McGhee’s apprehension or prosecution, whilst knowing or believing she had killed his son.
Mason (4) was discovered with severe injuries at a residence in Rathbane, Limerick City, on March 13th, 2021. He was declared dead three days afterwards.
Mr Justice McDermott additionally sentenced McGhee to four years and six months for two charges of child cruelty during the weeks and months preceding the murder. These child cruelty sentences will be served concurrently with the life term.
Mr Justice McDermott offered his “deepest sympathies” to the child’s mother, Elizabeth Conway, and the wider family.
The court was told that on March 13, 2021, the child’s father contacted emergency services, reporting his son had fallen from the top bunk of his bed an hour previously and was unresponsive. When paramedics arrived, they discovered the boy unresponsive on his bedroom floor.
Despite rushing him to hospital and performing emergency intervention and surgery, he tragically did not survive. Medical professionals observed numerous bruises of varying ages across the child’s face, head, torso and legs, indicative of non-accidental injuries or abuse.
The father attempted to explain the injuries by claiming his son was “the clumsiest child ever” and had sustained injuries from running into a door or playing football.
However, during the stepmother’s trial, it was revealed that the boy had been subjected to physical abuse for weeks and had spent four days confined to his room before his stepmother shook him and struck his head against the floor. He had also suffered a blunt force injury to his abdomen, causing a laceration to his liver.
A pathologist determined that either the head injury or the liver damage could have independently resulted in death.
The defendant described the boy as a “bold cheeky child” who often needed to be grounded. When grounded, he was forbidden from leaving his room except to use the toilet and was made to sit on the floor, never his bed.
The defendant told gardai that on the day the boy sustained his fatal injuries, she “snapped” and remembered “shaking him and screaming at him to behave” before he fell to the floor.
In a statement earlier this week, the child’s mother, Elizabeth Conway, revealed her son was born in early 2016 as a “fine, healthy little boy”. She painted him as a “clever little child who brought so much love and happiness into all our lives.
“He had the biggest smile and the most beautiful brown eyes. He was a perfect little boy,” she reminisced.
At just 18 months, he took it upon himself to potty train, proudly adopting the title of a “little man” and preferring to walk rather than ride in his buggy.
His affection for his younger siblings was evident, always eager to help care for them with kisses and cuddles, she added. A cherished memory for Ms Conway is a video of her son serenading his little sister with ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.
“He was such a caring little boy,” she affirmed.
Upon seeing a homeless man on the street, he implored his mother to offer the man a pizza, and later that night, expressed concern for the man’s wellbeing, seeking reassurance from his mother that he would be “okay”.
Following the “worst phone call any mother could get,” Ms Conway recounted being in hospital with the boy’s father and the defendant when doctors delivered the devastating news that there was nothing more they could do. Faced with the “hardest decision a mother could make”, she chose to turn off her son’s life support.
However, before this occurred, O’Connell and McGhee requested to be left alone with him.
She said: “I can only imagine what they were saying to my poor child’s lifeless body.”
Following the switching off of the life support machine, she described witnessing her “beautiful little child’s heartbeat go down and down” until he flatlined, and she pleaded with doctors to restart the machine.
She arranged the funeral herself and remembered how the child’s father and stepmother “stood in God’s holy house and said how much they loved him and that he was a superhero.”
She said his life was taken by “pure evil”, by someone her son “loved and trusted”.
