You're listening to the Men's Rea podcast, and this is the story of Gary and Norma Cotter.

Middleton is a market town located in South East Cork, just a 25-minute drive from Cork

City Center. The area is renowned for its rich food and drink heritage, and despite being

a bustling culinary and commercial hub, the region has retained a small town appeal. This

combined with its close proximity to the city makes Middleton a popular place to settle

down, and during the early to mid-90s, the area was seeing huge growth. One such family

who planted their roots in Middleton were Gary and Norma Cotter, who had both been born

and reared in the locality. The couple had become romantically involved during the summer

of 1988, and despite a 12-year age gap between them, they seemed to hit it off. Getting engaged

in 1989 when Gary was 34 and Norma was 22. Around this time, Gary also received a 15,000-pound

compensation claim from a motorbike crash he had been involved in, and the Cotters used

this lump sum as a deposit on their house in Brumfield, West, which they moved into following

their wedding in February of 1991. Their son Christopher was born in 1992, and in the years

following his arrival, Norma and Gary settled into life as parents with ease, with Gary in

particular idolizing his son. However, this picture of domestic bliss was about to be shattered

in the darkest way possible. A 10 past five on the morning of January 3, 1995, and Dean awoke

to furious banging on her front door. Alarmed by the commotion and the early hour, she flew

from her bed and ran down the stairs to find her neighbor, 28-year-old Norma Cotter, standing

on the doorstep in her night dress and coat, holding a smoking shotgun. Norma was hysterical

and crying, begging Anne for help. Norma told her bewildered neighbor, I'm after shooting Gary.

According to Cotter, her husband Gary had been quote nagging her, so she went downstairs to

retrieve the gun that he kept in the kitchen, taking it back upstairs with her. Gary was

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