Grace Livingstone

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Garda Irish (POLICE)

Offense Location:

Malahide, Dublin

Summary:

Grace Livingstone, 56, was murdered in her bedroom with a single shotgun blast to the back of her head on December 7, 1992 in Malahide, north Dublin. No one has ever been charged. While the original investigation was eventually discredited and James was cleared of suspicion, the murder remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

December 7th, 1992, began as an ordinary Monday morning in the Livingstone household. Grace saw her husband James off to work at 8:25am, along with their 20-year-old son Conor, who caught a lift with his father to O'Connell Street. Mrs Livingstone is believed to have been assaulted in the kitchen of the house before being shot with the shotgun owned by her husband, which was later found in the garden. Grace had been found dead on December 7, 1992, lying on her bed, shot in the back of her head, her hands and feet bound, masking tape over her mouth. Four local women had heard a bang like a gunshot at about 4.30pm, before Mr Livingstone returned home from work and found his wife's bloody body. Mr Livingstone told investigating officers that he returned home from work and found her body, bound with sticky tape, in a bedroom. He ran to a neighbour's house to raise the alarm and then untied his wife in an attempt to find a pulse.

Additional Details:

In mid-1994, a review of the original murder inquiry was carried out by Superintendent Tom Connolly and given to the Garda's crime and security branch. The likelihood James Livingstone had murdered his wife were "very slim", the review found. A strange youth, of slim build, with shoulder-length hair, a long coat and dark boots, was spotted on the road, the Moorings, on the day of the killing. Gardaí had identified suspects who on the day of the murder were selling cards for the Epilepsy Association. They were not officially sanctioned as sellers on the day, and in fact some had convictions for burglary and traffic offences. The association had agreed to interview 114 sellers and gardaí had taken fingerprints and photos of suspects. The arrest of Mr Livingstone on March 3, 1993, was unjustified. Mr Livingstone was arrested in March 1993 in connection with the possession of unlicensed firearms. Four of his guns were not licensed and he was subsequently fined for possessing an unlicensed firearm. Mr Livingstone said he believed the murder related to his work as a Revenue senior tax inspector. He was involved in two major anti-tax evasion projects at the time of his wife's death. One involved oil smuggling while the other related to bogus non-resident accounts. Livingstone, then head of the Special Investigations unit of the revenue Commissioners, was arrested and questioned for two days for questioning but released without charge. Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Livingstone has made the claim that his wife was shot by a ruthless IRA killer whom he has since met and attempted to correspond with. Speaking outside the court, Mr Livingstone said "this has been a long, long haul for all of us". He said it had finally been established after 15 years that he was not a suspect for his wife's murder. Today, the Gardaí continue to hold out hope that fresh evidence or new forensic techniques might finally bring closure to one of Ireland's most notorious cold cases.

Case Last Updated:

Jul 26, 2026