The bizarre tale of 'lone wolf' bomber Christine Connor, sentenced today for a bomb attack on police, is ultimately a tragic one.
Two men, Stuart Downes from Shropshire in England and student Zach Gevelinger from Wisconsin in America, both took their own lives, both believed they had been recruited for a romanticised 'Irish freedom struggle' by a woman who used a fake profile to lure them in.
The pictures used to create the Facebook profile Connor used to converse with the men were of a stunning Swedish fashion blogger Sanne Andersson, in almost all the pictures she was dressed in a bikini.
It seems an implausible scenario but one that clearly convinced both men, one of whom, despite having no connections to Irish republicanism, sourced bomb making parts, the other a lowly paid janitor sent hundreds of dollars to fund her one woman organisation and travelled to Belfast to meet her.
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The clue as to why they were so convinced of Connor's genuineness may lie in the hoax 999 call she made to get police to the scene of the attack in May 2013, released today after the sentencing of the north Belfast woman.
It is a recording of a terrified woman, assaulted by her boyfriend and who fears for her life. It is a scarily convincing performance.
Connor comes from a republican family, she lived a life of deluded fantasy, one in which she was a stunning blonde revolutionary fighting against British oppression.
In reality the court was told she is a woman, who despite being just 31-years-old is in poor health, facing a lengthy prison sentence, her two accomplices both dead by their own hand.
Detectives point to the extensive police work involving three forces that lead to the conviction.
However, there is nothing to celebrate in this story, rather it is a sad and sorry tale of a deeply deluded and manipulative young woman and two needlessly lost lives.
