Mary may have been killed by the same gang that would later be responsible for McGlinchey's death, part of a "long-running feud", suggested a group of Belfast journalists researching the conflict's mortality rate. It may also have been over money. Coogan suggests that her killers—who blamed her for the part she played in the deaths of McMahon and Mackin—flew in from the United States the day before and having shot her with borrowed guns, "were back on a plane to America the next day". Both the Gardaí and the INLA judged it an IPLO operation, and within a few days the latter had assassinated one of that group. The IRSP concurred, their spokesman Kevin Quillan saying in a radio interview the next day that they "could quite clearly state that we would lay the blame for this brutal murder at the door of the so-called IPLO, one of the factions of these dissident groupings", and further suggested that the IPLO received the assistance of British intelligence in targeting Mary McGlinchey. However, her death appears to have been unconnected with it. McGlinchey wanted to investigate Mary's death, but he was hampered by the fact that no-one was willing to discuss it with him while the feud was still on-going. Her death also put an end to the on-going contact between the INLA and the disaffected elements of the East Tyrone Brigade who had contacted McGlinchey. After their mother's death, Declan and Dominic lived with their maternal and paternal grandparents, in Toomebridge and Bellaghy respectively.