It’s the early hours of December 8, 2000, and Dublin is in the grip of a fierce winter storm. The city, usually bustling with late-night revelers, is almost deserted. Sheets of rain slam into the pavements, whipped sideways by gusts of wind reaching 70 miles per hour. It’s a night when most people would rather be anywhere but outside. Yet here, in the heart of the storm, a young man is walking alone through the streets. His name is Trevor Deely, and tonight he is about to vanish without a trace.
Trevor is 22 years old, tall, with a friendly face and a full head of reddish hair. He’s the youngest of four children, born and raised in the quiet town of Naas, County Kildare, about an hour outside Dublin. Trevor isn’t exactly a straight arrow—he dropped out of business school and drifted for a bit before finding his footing in computers, a field that seemed to unlock something in him. In May 1999, he landed a job in the IT department of the Bank of Ireland Asset Management on Leeson Street, Dublin. It was a steady job, the kind of thing his parents felt good about, especially his father, Michael, who had told him, “Take the bank job—it’s safe.” Trevor’s life was finally coming together.
This December night is supposed to be just another fun night out. It’s the annual office Christmas party—a night of free drinks and good cheer, when coworkers set aside the stress of the year and celebrate. Trevor and his colleagues have been making the rounds: first at Copper Face Jacks, then the Hilton Hotel, and finally Buck Whaley’s, a nightclub known for its lively crowd. But by 3:25 a.m., Trevor has had enough. It’s late, he’s tired, and he’s ready to go home.
But going home is easier said than done tonight. Dublin’s taxi drivers are on strike, and the storm shows no signs of letting up. As Trevor leaves the club, rain pounds down on him, soaking through his jacket. With no other option, he decides to walk. And instead of heading straight to his apartment in Ballsbridge, he makes an unusual decision: he stops by his office on Leeson Street.
Now, it’s important to note—this isn’t entirely strange. Maybe he needed an umbrella, maybe he just wanted to dry off for a bit. But when Trevor arrives at his office, something unexpected happens. CCTV footage shows him approaching the building, but he’s not alone. Outside the gates stands a man dressed all in black—a hooded figure who’s been waiting there for nearly thirty minutes, lurking in the shadows.
Trevor and the man exchange a few words—what they say is lost to time, but it doesn’t seem confrontational. Trevor walks inside the office, makes himself a cup of tea, and chats with Karl Pender, a colleague working the night shift. Trevor checks his emails, jots down a few notes about what he needs to do at work the next day, and grabs an umbrella before heading back out into the rain at 4:03 a.m. By the time he leaves, the man in black has disappeared.
But Trevor’s not alone for long. A little over ten minutes later, he’s captured on another CCTV camera, walking past the AIB Bank on the corner of Baggot Street Bridge and Haddington Road, heading towards his apartment. The footage is grainy, the image fuzzy, but it’s unmistakably Trevor, his tall figure striding through the rain. And then, just thirty seconds later, another figure appears—dressed in dark clothing, walking the same path. This man, whoever he is, follows Trevor out of the frame and into the night. It’s the last confirmed sighting of Trevor Deely. From that moment on, he’s gone.
THE SEARCH
The next morning, Trevor doesn’t show up for work. But it’s not until Monday, three days later, that anyone realizes something is truly wrong. His coworkers think he’s taking a long weekend, recovering from the Christmas party. His flatmates are away, unaware he never made it home. But by Monday, when Trevor misses work again, his boss, Daragh Treacy, starts to worry. Treacy calls Trevor’s family in Naas, and the Deelys, sensing something is terribly wrong, immediately head to Dublin. They report Trevor missing, and a desperate search begins.
Trevor’s friends and family mobilize with a determination that is both heartbreaking and fierce. They plaster Dublin with posters, hundreds of them, each one bearing Trevor’s smiling face. They knock on doors, hand out leaflets, and ask anyone and everyone if they’ve seen him. They retrace his steps over and over, combing the streets, checking alleyways, even peering into dumpsters, hoping for any clue. But it’s as if Trevor has been swallowed by the city.
The Gardaí, Ireland’s police force, launch an investigation, focusing on the footage from that stormy night. The man in black becomes a key person of interest, but his identity remains elusive. Despite repeated appeals, he never comes forward. Weeks go by, and the trail grows colder. The Gardaí search the River Dodder and the Grand Canal, thinking perhaps Trevor might have fallen in during the storm. They find nothing. Not a shoe, not a phone—nothing to suggest that Trevor had ever been there.
Trevor’s family pushes on, refusing to give up. Two of his sisters even fly to Alaska, retracing Trevor’s last major trip. Just weeks before he disappeared, Trevor had traveled there to visit a girl he’d met over the summer. It was supposed to be a fun getaway, a spontaneous trip made possible by a free flight arranged by a friend who worked for Aer Lingus. But Alaska offers no answers. The girl Trevor visited is cooperative, but she knows nothing about his disappearance.
In December 2016, sixteen years after Trevor went missing, the Gardaí reopen the case. Enhanced CCTV footage is released, showing that the man seen trailing Trevor on Haddington Road is indeed the same person who spoke to him outside his office earlier that night. It’s a revelation, but it raises more questions than it answers. Who is this man? Why was he following Trevor? And most troubling of all—did he know what happened to him?
A MYSTERY UNSOLVED
In August 2017, a potential breakthrough emerges. An informant comes forward, claiming that Trevor was murdered the night he disappeared. According to this tipster, Trevor had an unlucky run-in with a member of a notorious gang from Crumlin, a Dublin suburb notorious for its criminal underworld. The man in black, the informant says, was part of this gang and approached Trevor that night looking to gain access to the Bank of Ireland building. When Trevor didn’t—or couldn’t—help, the encounter turned deadly.
The Gardaí take this information seriously. They launch a massive search of a secluded area in Chapelizod, on the outskirts of Dublin, where the informant claims Trevor’s body was buried. For weeks, they dig, tearing through the overgrown landscape in search of remains, but once again, they come up empty. The search is called off, and the trail goes cold once more.
As the years pass, Trevor’s disappearance becomes one of Ireland’s most enduring mysteries. The theories about what happened to him run the gamut—some believe he was abducted and killed by the man in black, while others think he may have accidentally drowned in one of Dublin’s canals, his body swept away by the storm. More outlandish theories suggest he was targeted because of something he knew, caught up in some larger criminal scheme. But there’s no evidence to support any of these scenarios, just fragments of a story that doesn’t quite add up.
For Trevor’s family, the lack of answers is an endless source of pain. His parents, Michael and Ann, along with his siblings, have spent over two decades haunted by the not-knowing. They’ve lived through every false lead, every whispered rumor, every hopeful moment that has ended in bitter disappointment. And yet, they refuse to let Trevor’s story fade away. They continue to campaign, to appeal to the public, to keep Trevor’s face in the minds of anyone who might have seen something that night.
In a 2015 documentary, Trevor’s sister Michele spoke about the void that remains. “It’s like a light has gone out,” she said. “You’re waiting for someone to walk through the door and they don’t.”
It’s been more than twenty years, but the questions about Trevor Deely’s fate persist. Who was the man in black? What did he want from Trevor? And why, in the middle of a stormy night, did a bright young man with his whole life ahead of him simply vanish?
The answers remain elusive, locked away somewhere in the dark corners of Dublin’s rainy streets. Until someone comes forward, until someone finds the courage to speak up, the mystery of what happened to Trevor Deely will remain unsolved—a story without an ending, a question without an answer, and a family forever waiting for the truth.
Deep Lore 