Most wanted fugitive Maguire dead

Yvonne Holmes broke down on Tuesday after finding her son Stephen's first pair of football boots.Just hours later, the body of the man accused of murdering her son almost 12 months earlier was found in bushland on the Central Coast.While a post-mortem examination will confirm the dead man's identity, it is almost certainly that of Stanley Francis Maguire.Maguire, 59, has been missing since the night of November 24, after he had been involved in an altercation with Mr Holmes, a 41-year-old father of four girls, before shooting him dead in their Woonona street.The skeletal remains were located by a bushwalker at 6pm on Tuesday night in the same area where an extensive search was carried out by police following the discovery of Maguire's abandoned car just days after Mr Holmes' death.Mr Holmes was allegedly shot in the chest by Maguire, who lived diagonally opposite in Lassiter Ave, after confronting him about his unruly behaviour.Mr Holmes' wife, Angela, said her husband crossed the road to confront Maguire about the "insanities" he was repeating "over and over". "My husband had had enough," she said. "He asked him to be quiet. And he pulled a gun and killed him."In the wake of the Helensburgh coal miner's death, it emerged Maguire had spent eight years in jail for manslaughter after running over and then shooting former Corrimal man John Vickers on the Central Coast.He was released in 2002 and his parole ended on March 1, 2004.Last December, as the manhunt for Maguire intensified, NSW Police added him to the state's most wanted list. As forensic pathologist and police investigators attended the scene yesterday, they would have searched for Maguire's rifle, unaccounted for since the night of Mr Holmes' murder and possibly used by Maguire to take his own life.Mrs Holmes, who was told of the breakthrough by a Wollongong detective yesterday morning, said she was thankful the ordeal of not knowing the whereabouts of her son's killer was over."At least it's finished. There's no having to face him in court. We won't have to relive it all," she said.Mrs Holmes said her son's wife, who still lives at Woonona with their daughters, was also told of the update."I'm so upset for his girls - especially the two teenage girls. It's been hard for them. The longer it goes on the more they are missing their father," she said."For me, it hasn't got any easier. Everywhere you turn in the house there are things that remind you of Stephen, the things he's done."When I was spring cleaning I came across his first little pair of soccer boots. So many things that upset you. Perhaps this will be the finish now."