A KEY suspect in a gun murder at a boxing weigh-in in Dublin during a bloody gangland feud has died.
Kevin Murray, from Strabane, Co Tyrone, was wanted in the Republic in connection with the shooting of David Byrne (33) at the Regency Hotel in Dublin in February 2016. Two other people were injured in the attack that involved men armed with automatic weapons.
He earned the nickname "flatcap" in the media after being photographed fleeing the shooting wearing an old style cap.
He died on Wednesday night after a battle with Motor Neurone disease.
Details of his condition only came to light when authorities in the Republic attempted to have him extradited from Northern Ireland to face charges in connection with the attack.
The application was rejected earlier this year after Belfast High Court was told he only had months to live. It ruled that he was too ill to stand trial for murder and firearms offences.
During the extradition application it emerged that Murray stayed in the Regency Hotel on the night before the shooting on February 5, 2016 and that he had been identified by several people at the crime scene.
Murray is the second person from Northern Ireland linked to the gangland conflict between the Kinahan and Hutch crime families to die since the start of the 2016 feud.
Mickey Barr, also originally from Strabane, was shot in the head in a Dublin pub in April last year as part of the drug linked feud which has so far claimed the lives of 11 people.
After his death, the New IRA claimed the 35-year-old gangster as a member. Guns the dissident organisation had previously obtained from an old Provisional IRA haul were used in the Regency attack.
Barr was given a republican funeral in the Co Tyrone town with men in full paramilitary uniform.
The PSNI later arrested 15 men in connection with the paramilitary display.
Kevin Murray's funeral will take place in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Strabane tomorrow with relatives asking for donations in lieu of flowers to Motor Neurone Family.
