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GARDAÍ HAVE TAKEN a number of DNA samples in a bid to track down the family of murdered Baby John who was found on a Kerry beach over 33 years ago.
The news comes as around 20 officers descended on Valentia Island to canvass the area.
Gardaí said that they had not been acting on specific intelligence but that the island was the closest landmass to White Strand Beach in Caherciveen where Baby John was found stabbed to death.
It is hoped that DNA samples taken from a number of people in south Kerry will unearth a link between the murdered infant and his biological parents.
At a press conference at the start of this year, gardaí confirmed that a formal apology has been offered to Joanne Hayes for the stress and pain she was put through as a result of the original investigation. She had wrongly been accused of murdering the baby.
Speaking yesterday , Superintendent Flor Murphy of Killarney Garda Station said: “The investigation into Baby John is continuing. Significant work has been undertaken since January by the local investigation team supported by the Serious Crime Review Team.
Over 9,000 investigative hours have been expended on the investigation and 225 separate lines of enquiry are being actively progressed. Selective DNA sampling is ongoing and this is a key focus of the investigation.
“The investigation is still appealing for information from the public. We still believe that members of the community in South Kerry have information about the identity of the mother of Baby John. Baby John lived for five days so someone, somewhere knows about his very short life.
“Someone is Baby John’s mother. Someone is Baby John’s father. Someone knew his mother or father. People have carried a lot of pain and hurt over the last 30 years. This is an opportunity for them to help bring closure to this terrible event and ensure that Baby John receives justice.”
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The guards are desperate to get to the bottom of this, not because it’s their job and they should have done it in the 1980s, but because they want to control the narrative of this case. They want the attention off gardai who battered a family to get false confessions, garda who lied battered and lied and to think those guards have never been charged.
@sixmile: must be a good thing those days are over.
@sixmile: so right and Carroll still won’t except they tried to beat and frame the wrong family. Funny that he’s a Kerry man.
@Liam Treacy:
Tell that to the mcbreartys
@David Clarke:
They DID beat the family
@sixmile: Maybe they just want justice for a murdered baby.
@Ciaran Leonard:
why wait until now?
@sixmile: DNA testing is a relatively new science with the garda…
@Chris Kirk:
that’s another lie from you kirky, have you no shame? This morning the ruc/brits were giving you tea and cupcakes when you crossed the border, what next?
For all we know baby John’s mother and father could be in Chicago or Liverpool having left in the 1980s wave of immigration. I can’t see any good coming out of this investigation 35 years later, like the Tuam babies, it’s just one more sorry chapter in a book of Ireland’s shabby and shady history.
@Charles Williams: that’s only true if it leads nowhere. One positive thing it will do is remind us who we are as a nation. We have always, and still do, consider ourselves morally superior to most of the world. We look at shocking news stories from the US or India, or hold up things like the Holocaust or Japanese comfort women or British Imperialism as proof that we are a better people. We’re not, we all have the same potentials.
@Charles Williams: You can’t see any good coming out of this investigation? How about justice for baby John? An innocent who was stabbed to death and thrown into the sea. That baby deserves justice as much as any other murdered individual. I cannot imagine the mindset of someone who could do that to a baby, so perhaps mental health was an issue. But at the very least baby John deserves an ongoing investigation into an open murder investigation.
@Deborah Blacoe:
i fixed that for you below
@sixmile: Charles Williams also said he couldn’t see any good coming out of this investigation. So many people who see justice as an optional extra where murder is concerned.
@Charles Williams: True, however DNA testing can also link to the wider family members ie, grandparents, cousins etc…
@Greg Blake: we are morally superior as a nation? What a load of nonsense.
I can’t see what good can come out of this. So they find the mother what then. They expose her to a media circus and vilification to what end.
@Nell foran:
from debra blacoe
@Charles Williams: You can’t see any good coming out of this investigation? How about justice for baby John? An innocent who was stabbed to death and thrown into the sea. That baby deserves justice as much as any other murdered individual. I cannot imagine the mindset of someone who could do that to a baby, so perhaps mental health was an issue. But at the very least baby John deserves an ongoing investigation into an open murder investigation.
@Nell foran: so should we just leave a person be incase their feeling are hurt for murdering a baby to death ? .the only good that should come out of it for a person to be charged with the murder and finally justice for the baby.
Two babies found dead not one
Joanna Hayes and her family signed confessions
Stating that they either killed or helped in the
Killing of the child and disposing of the childs
Body
How is that possible, when we now know they never done it
JERRY YOUR SOME MAN
AND YOU KNOW IT
Good night Jerry and sleep tight
Your on your own now
The boss’s with the
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