A brave British nurse who tended to Ross Monaghan after he was shot along with Eddie Lyons Jnr said: ‘I just held his hand and stroked his hair. His eyes were open and I kept saying stay with me Ross’
A British nurse has told how she held the hand of a Scottish gangster as he lay dying after he was shot during a double murder on the Costa del Sol. The woman in her 50s said she was having a drink with her partner in a nearby bar when a masked gunman killed Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jnr in front of horrified tourists.
He struck in Monaghans bar in Fuengirola at about 11.30pm on Saturday just after the Champions League final ended. The nurse, who asked not to be named, said she ran to help after she heard the shots. She said: “I was sitting with my partner in a pub when we heard one shot followed by a gap and then four more shots. We all ran into the bar and I was shouting ‘get inside’.
“At the time they were celebrating the football because the game had just ended. Someone said a person had been shot and because I’m a nurse I ran to Monaghans bar to see if I could help.”
Graphic footage showing Monaghan scrambling to escape his killer has been broadcast on Spanish TV. The video was captured seconds after Lyons Jnr, 46, was gunned down outside the bar. It shows Monaghan, 43, with blood seeping through his white t-shirt from a chest wound, propping himself up on a table before collapsing.
CCTV from the bar showed the gunman – who was dressed in black – chasing Monaghan. Two bystanders, thought to be a waitress and another man in black, can be seen running away from the suspect.
The nurse said: “I got to the first person who was lying on his back on the terrace who I later discovered was Eddie Lyons Jnr. He was clearly dead and had what appeared to be a bullet wound in his chest and one in his abdomen. A bar lady told me there was another one in the bar.
“The other man, Ross, had one shot in his chest, just on the right side. He was lying on the floor and was still alive but his breathing was laboured. He was wearing a white T-shirt and shorts and trainers and he looked younger than 43.
“There was blood everywhere, on the floor and around the service hatch to the kitchen. There was nothing I could do, he wasn’t bleeding from his mouth so I just held his hand, stroked his hair and waited for the emergency services.”
It is understood Monaghan had an exit wound in his back where the bullet had passed through his body. The nurse said armed police arrived on the scene first who moved him to the recovery position before performing CPR.
Monaghan, who was believed to be the owner of the bar, was a suspect in the 2010 murder of Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll outside in Robroyston, Glasgow. He was charged but the case was later dropped.
Monaghan fled to Spain after he was shot in the shoulder after dropping his child off at a primary school in Glasgow in 2017. Spanish police said on Monday that no arrests have been made. A spokesman said: “The investigation is continuing into the fatal shooting of two men at a pub in Fuengirola, with nothing new at the moment.”