Mystery Death

By Stephen McKinley

After a U2 concert in Denver, Donegal native Padraig Welch set off on the 200-mile drive to his home in Vail, Colo. It was late on the evening of Somewhere along the road, Welch’s car, which he’d borrowed from a friend, got a flat tire. The next day, his body was found in an alleyway behind a Wal-Mart store, in the town of Frisco, 40 miles from where he had apparently abandoned his car. He was hanging from the neck by his belt, his death subsequently ruled a suicide by police.

His family in Ireland and the U.S. say they have no reason to suspect that Welch was depressed or suicidal. Welch family members have continued to question whether he committed suicide, and have said they feel the police investigation into his death was not rigorous enough.

“We were going to meet up with him in Chicago the next week,” the dead man’s mother, Angela, said this week from her home in Fanad, Co. Donegal. “He was really looking forward to it, and to his birthday the next week. His was a day after his sister’s birthday.”

Angela Welch and Padraig’s sister Eileen Welch, in Chicago, both insist that Padraig had “everything to live for,” and they do not accept that he was suicidal.

In Frisco, the investigating police officer Glenn Johnson, defended the inquiry into Welch’s death.

“This was investigated as a homicide, as are all suspicious deaths,” Johnson said Tuesday. “Conclusions can go many different ways, but based on the facts, we concluded that this was a suicide.” The Frisco police report found no evidence of foul play.

Shaun Padraig Welch had moved to Colorado in 2000 after securing a Walsh visa, which allows young Irish citizens from disadvantaged parts of Ireland to seek training in a range of skills in the U.S. He would have turned 23 on Nov. 23.

He started work at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, in the Tavern restaurant as a supervisor, then in September 2001 moved to the Regency Hyatt in nearby Vail.

In Colorado, Welch was outgoing and friendly, according to Caroline Wade, another Walsh visa recipient, who knew Welch as a friend from the age of 13.

Wade is also convinced the circumstances surrounding Welch’s death remain a mystery, and agrees that the police investigation was closed too quickly.

“The police were useless,” she said.

A week before his death, Welch had called his mother and told her how much he was looking forward to seeing her and his sister in Chicago. He also mentioned going to the U2 concert in Denver.

The next Welch’s heard of him, she said, was when the gardai called at her house with the tragic news that her son had been found dead.

When Welch’s car had a flat tire on the night of Nov. 8, according to police records, the spare tire was flat as well. What happened next is unknown, but his sister Eileen insisted that the police were negligent when they investigated the death of her brother.

“There were discrepancies in their report,” she said. “When we talked to police they didn’t want to know. He was obviously taken to Frisco or got a lift there. He even bought cigarettes somewhere. They didn’t try to find out where or who he was with.

“I had to go myself and do a lot of work to find anything out. We were told by a lady at a [Frisco] newspaper that the police were useless. The newspaper had to help us get the coroner’s number. I was doing all the work down there.”

Police said that Welch had tried to make a call on his cell phone, but, said Eileen, were unclear who he tried to contact — one document said that he had tried to call his roommate in Avon, another said that he had tried to call his old number in Colorado Springs.

“We don’t think he was familiar with Frisco,” Eileen said. “The police just said ‘suicide,’ but no one who knew him could believe that. He was planning to take Caroline to Vail [a ski resort near Colorado Springs] for her birthday.”

She asked the question that has bothered the family the most since the tragic news: “He obviously got a lift with someone, the 40 miles to Frisco. The police didn’t try to find that person.”

The Frisco police force did ask for help from the public, through an article written in the Summit Daily News, the newspaper that serves the area. A local reporter, Jane Reuter, wrote about Welch’s death. She recorded in two articles the Welches’ anguish and that the police wanted help establishing how Welch traveled the 40 miles from his broken-down car to Frisco.

Reuter said last week that she did not find the verdict of suicide convincing. She added that Welch’s wallet was untouched, with $30 inside, and his backpack was beside him, indicating to her that no one had tried to rob him.

When Eileen Welch was in Frisco trying to find out more about her brother’s death, she said that the local authorities were unhelpful: “I had to go in person, myself, and do a lot of the work, asking questions.”

She added that the place were Welch’s body was found was particularly strange. The location was so out of the way, and in a town that he would not have known, that she cannot accept that he went there on his own.

“I don’t know why he went up [the alleyway], you would have needed to know where you were going to even get there,” she said, then added, “He was headstrong, really put together and really happy. It just wasn’t in his nature.”

Investigating officer Johnson said that “I feel bad for the family. Families will always have reservations in situations like this.”

Welch’s remains were returned to Donegal and buried next to his father in Fanad.

Despite their ordeal, Welch’s family seems torn between wanting to know the truth about his death and keeping an open mind. His mother, Angela, said, “I’d still like to know who took him there, even if he did take his own life.”