When Joe is having a birthday party in The Jockey, he learns his father has died. In spite of Joe seeing his father as a selfish failure, his death is a system shock, and Joe begins trying to reclaim Karen and Connor, whom he continues to see as their son. Joe and Karen resume their affair, but Karen is afraid to tell Jamie the truth. After his father's funeral, Joe finally tells Jamie the entire truth. Joe and Karen hide out at his shop. Joe sees Jamie waiting outside, and expects a fight, only to be devastated when Jamie shows him his father's corpse, dug up and dumped outside Joe's shop. On seeing the corpse, Joe vomits and Karen screams and falls over. Joe buries his father again, and becomes more determined to take Connor from the Maguires. Joe later implies that he had Paddy killed after Karen expressed concerns over Paddy taking revenge on them. After running away with Karen with baby Connor, and Ian hiding in the boot unknowingly to Joe, Karen tells Joe that she doesn't love him. He goes into a rage, and strangles Karen while demanding her to tell him that she loves him. She is struggling for breath, and Ian Gallagher (Gerard Kearns) can hear the action outside. He jumps out of the boot and seemingly kills Joe by hitting him twice in the back of the head with a pipe wrench.