LAST UPDATE | 25 Mar 2023
“I AM THE Kerry baby.”
For decades, a gold inscription etched into a black marble gravestone has relayed almost everything known about the infant boy that lies there to visitors who come to Holy Cross cemetery in Cahersiveen.
The stone features no date of birth or death, or a full name; its only other references are to Baby John and the date the child was baptised, 14 April, 1984 – the same day he was discovered lifeless with multiple stab wounds on nearby White Strand beach.
Investigators have been seeking to piece together everything else in the years since, in a case that has at times shocked the nation and asked questions of Ireland’s treatment of women, social attitudes towards sex, and the capabilities of Gardaí.
The latest twist came on Thursday evening, when two people were arrested in the broader West Kerry area in what lead investigator Superintendent Flor Murphy described as a “significant development”. Both have now since been released, with a file to be prepared for the DPP.
It is perhaps the most remarkable episode in the case since the exoneration of Joanne Hayes, who was arrested soon after the remains of Baby John were found, and comes after hundreds of interviews and over 560 new lines of enquiry since 2018.
Joanne Hayes, a local woman, was around the time of Baby John’s discovery an unmarried woman who had been in a relationship with a married man and became pregnant.
She gave birth to a baby on the family farm – a different baby to the baby found at the beach – which had died shortly after it was born and which was, unbeknownst to Gardaí, then buried on the farm.
Following her arrest by Gardaí in relation to the discovery of Baby John’s remains, Joanne Hayes confessed to the murder.
But she later recanted and some years after received an apology from the State and Gardaí after an earlier tribunal confirmed that she was not the child’s mother.
After the tribunal, the case went cold for years, until new technology prompted investigators to take a new approach.
In 2014, around the time of the 30th anniversary of Baby John’s discovery, the Hayes family re-emerged to comment on the case via a solicitor.
The family highlighted how DNA technology was by then available to Gardaí, and they said they wanted the matter to be put to rest once and for all, offering to submit a sample of Joanne’s blood to be analysed to set the record straight.
Whether or not that statement contributed to a re-think by Gardaí, the offer soon turned out to be unnecessary.
On 16 January 2018, investigators announced a review into the death of Baby John – and also publicly apologised to Joanne Hayes, saying that she was not a suspect in the case.
The new probe was prompted by advances in DNA technology, which was not available to investigators in the 1980s, particularly after the success of Operation Runabay, a similar cold case review which helped to identify bodies of people located in western coastal areas of Great Britain who were previously reported missing in Ireland.
Superintendent Flor Murphy, who was put in charge of the cold case, explained at the time that DNA offered more than a technological advancement; there was a procedural element too.
Gardaí also obtained a full DNA profile for the deceased child, which meant that investigators could call on certain individuals and ask them to provide their DNA if they suspected they had a link to the case.
“After all these years, Baby John deserves the truth,” Murphy told reporters who gathered in the town.
Acknowledging that the original investigation fell short of what was required from a professional police service, he said Gardaí were seeking to make things right the second time around.
“I want to reassure the public that this will be a thorough and professional investigation,” he added.
“While this investigation team cannot change what happened in the past, we can help find the answers into what happened to Baby John and are determined to do so.”
Local Gardaí worked alongside the Serious Crime Review Team on the case, whose early stages focused on determining, using computer mapping, how Baby John’s body could have ended up on White Strand.
When that task was completed, investigators narrowed their DNA appeal to specific areas.
DNA samples were also taken from locals in the region in the hope of potentially tracing the baby’s parents (though this was on a voluntary basis and people could decline to take part).
Gardaí hoped that this would help identify Baby John’s family and that it could resolve the mystery of his violent death.
Any breakthroughs were expected to come from people in the area around Cahersiveen, and Gardaí focused inquiries around the town and around the south Kerry area.
“These events generally are local. The answers are local,” Detective Chief Superintendent Walter O’Sullivan of the serious crime squad said at the time.
As the decade ended and the pandemic took hold, no developments in the case were publicised – aside from Joanne Hayes’ case against the State and authorities to declare all findings or wrongdoing made against her and her family to be unfounded and incorrect.
Then, in September 2021, Baby John’s grave was re-opened and his remains were exhumed again, on foot of a large amount of samples collected in 2018.
Gardaí believed this would finally give them the last piece in the puzzle, and hoped that a new sample from Baby John could provide a better clue than the original sample collected from his remains in 1984.
One of the key pillars of the investigation centred on cross-checking the DNA samples collected in the area around White Strand.
Those DNA samples were cross referenced with DNA taken from Baby John when he was exhumed in 2021.
That ultimately led to the two arrests on Thursday evening.
While the two people arrested may have given a sample during the voluntary appeal in 2018, it’s likely they will have been asked to give a sample to Gardaí in custody too.
It’s likely those samples will have been tested to corroborate any earlier samples given by the pair five years ago.
As of this morning, both have been released – the woman last night, and the man in the early hours of this morning.
The statement marking the man’s release noted: “The investigation into the death of Baby John is continuing. A file will be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. An Garda Síochána has no further comment at this time.”
- Contains reporting by Niall O’Connor in Co Kerry and Daragh Brophy
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