Northern Ireland police murder suspects 'linked to case by DNA' Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, who was killed in 2009. Photograph: PSNI/PA DNA evidence links two men to the first terrorist murder of a Police Service of Northern Ireland constable, a court has heard. Opening the case against John Paul Wooton and the former Sinn Féin councillor Brendan McConville, a prosecution lawyer told Belfast crown court that other evidence would also connect the accused to the murder of Constable Stephen Carroll on 9 March 2009. The PSNI officer died in a sniper attack on the car he was sitting in at a private housing estate in Craigavon, north Armagh. The Continuity IRA later admitted responsibility. Wooton and McConville both deny the charges against them, while Wooton's mother, Sharon, faces a separate charge of perverting the course of justice for allegedly removing a computer. The police officer died 48 hours after the Real IRA shot dead two army sappers outside a military base in Antrim Town - the three murders marking a new upsurge in dissident republican terrorism. Wooton, 20, and McConville, 40, also deny charges of possessing an AK47 assault rifle. Carroll, 48, was married with children and came from the Banbridge area of County Down. He had served in the police for more than 24 years, first in the Royal Ulster Constabulary and later in the PSNI. He had gone to Lismore Manor in Craigavon after a woman called police when her window was broken. The officer was shot through the rear window of his police car when he arrived at the scene.