Joseph Patrick Campbell

On the evening of his murder he received two telephone calls at home, the nature of which he didn’t share with his family. After the second call, about 8:30pm, he left his home to walk the short distance to Cushendall Police Station where his colleague was on duty.

Sergeant Campbell had elected to wear his personal protection sidearm, which was unusual for him. He remained in the station talking with his colleague until shortly before 9:00pm, when the Constable finished his duties for the evening. Sergeant Campbell saw him off the premises and secured the main gates to the compound.

At approximately 9:00pm at least one shot was heard by a number of people in Cushendall and, soon after, a member of the public found Sergeant Campbell on the ground outside the main gates to the Police Station. He had sustained a gunshot wound to his head and was conveyed to hospital but died without regaining consciousness.

At the time of Sergeant Campbell’s death Cushendall Police Station operated limited opening hours between 9:00am and 11:00am and 5:00pm and 7:00pm. These hours were to facilitate members of the public attending the station while also providing Sergeant Campbell and a Constable, recently posted to the area, the capacity to pursue other policing duties.

A Donegal-born Catholic, he was posted to the Glens of Antrim in 1963 and stationed in Cushendall, the town in which he lived with his family. Before his murder in 1977 he told Denis Murray, a Special Branch officer, that he feared his fellow officers whom he suspected of corruption, were plotting to kill him.