Michael Thomas Casey McCann, generally known as Casey, was originally from Wexford, Ireland, but moved to England in the 1960s. He eventually became a very well-liked schoolmaster in Kent, where he worked until 1991. He was also known for his co-leadership of FAIR (Family Action, Information, Rescue), an organization dedicated to helping people extricate themselves from abusive or coercive cults or religions.
In the early 1990s, Casey accepted a position as headmaster at St. Paul’s British School in São Paulo, Brazil. He lived in a fairly swanky apartment in the city and frequented a coffee shop near his residence, where he was sometimes spotted with one of two young men he was seeing. Café employees described one of these individuals as a tall, youngish black man and one as a tall, strong-looking white man with dark hair who appeared to be about thirty.
In February of 2000, when Casey was fifty-seven years old, he was considering retiring from teaching and moving back to Ireland. Sadly, however, he would never get the chance.
On Monday, February 28th, his maid Dirce de Olieveira arrived for work as usual and found Casey McCann dead in the bedroom of his apartment. He was slumped on his bed, clad only in his underwear, his hands and feet bound with his own neckties. It was believed he’d been suffocated.
There were signs of struggle in the apartment, such as a whiskey bottle broken on the floor, but no indication of forced entry. Though links to his anti-cult activity were explored, police suspected that Casey had been murdered by a lover, probably on Saturday night.
The building’s doorman reported seeing the prime suspect entering the apartment with Casey on the 26th, but it wasn’t clear whether the individual he saw was one of the two men Casey was usually spotted with at the coffee shop.
The murder of the beloved teacher and activist remains a cold case.
Crime Immemorial 