Ana’s horrific murder has shocked us to the core. But locking our children up at home is not the solution

IT’S not long now until school’s out and the summer holidays begin. The teenagers are already out in force, huddled in groups outside the local shops, or stretched out in the parks on sunny evenings, uniforms dishevelled, long and lanky limbs adorned with grass stains.

It’s as if they are in training for a new way of life: the three giddy months of uninterrupted indolence and freedom stretching before them, brimming with adventure, mischief and maybe romance – or so they hope.

Parents may fear that with so much free time on their hands, young teenagers will go off the rails.

Blossom

But while in most cases they return to school come September with nothing more exciting to report than a few Bulmers at a house party, or the handful of nights they stayed out until midnight, the halcyon days of summer are still a rite of passage, the time of the year when most of us came of age.

Films and books are devoted to showing how once cut loose from the constraints of school rules and the watchful eyes of home, youngsters blossom and grow into themselves. How those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer open up a new world for teenagers and the discovery of the intoxicating thrill of being young.

The vicious murder of young Ana Kriegel in Lucan shocked us on so many levels: her youth, the extreme violence of her death, and the suspicion that someone from her peer group could perhaps be responsible.

But the fact of her death occuring just as the tantalising promise of summer beckoned makes it particularly poignant. Ana only made her Confirmation last year. She was still so young and innocent. Like thousands of first-year students up and down the country, she was about to embark on her first long summer holiday, and she had probably all sorts of plans up her sleeve.

Like many teenagers she loved make-up and fashion. Once she had put her dreary uniform away, it’s highly likely she would have experimented with a new style, had her hair dyed or her nose pierced. That’s also what summer is for.

Around teatime on the fateful day of her death, a 13-year-old boy called to her house asking her to go to the park. The last sighting of Ana was in St Catherine’s Park in Lucan shortly afterwards.

According to sources, Ana was sexually assaulted and beaten with, most likely, a brick across the head. It looks as if she was killed in an explosion of violence – blood splattered debris from the murder scene suggest that she also beaten with sticks, blocks and rocks.

Gardaí are hoping that DNA profiles taken from the scene will help identify her killer or killers. They do not believe she was the victim of a random attack, but that she may have been killed by one or more people she knew.

Her body was left lying naked in an old disused farmhouse about one kilometre or so from St Catherine’s Park, a derelict spot used by local teenagers for drinking cans and all sorts of antisocial activity. Investigators believe that she was left there from the time she disappeared on Monday evening until her remains were discovered by a Garda search team on Thursday afternoon.

Panic

But as Ana’s body was left for dead by her attacker, her dutiful parents were already worried about her whereabouts. They texted and called her repeatedly and with rising levels of panic, as it was so out of character for her not to respond. At 8.30pm on Monday they raised the alarm with the gardaí and a huge search operation was launched.

Ana’s parents have nothing to reproach themselves for. Ana, adopted from Russia aged two, was a much-wanted and wellcared-for child. She was clearly close to her parents. She had a circle of friends and one sibling, a brother younger than her by a year. She attended school locally and grew up in a solid community.

Local Social Democrat TD Catherine Murphy, a longtime family friend, knew Ana well, describing her as an active child who enjoyed swimming and dancing.

That such a barbaric murder could be committed against a background of such sheer ordinariness, and strike at one so young, shocks us to the core.

All victims of crime are blameless but there’s still a human tendency to look out for a red flag, some bizarre or unique thread in the tapestry of the crime that might explain why a particular victim was doomed.

The idea of violent attacks, particularly on children, are just so terrifying to contemplate that we search for warning signs even when, as in this case, there seem to be none.

We want to reassure ourselves that such brutality will not be visited upon us or our loved ones.

As the gardaí continue their investigations and question the young lads who were with Ana on her last evening alive, cautious parents might attempt to restrict their teenagers’ freedom and keep them close to home.

Freedom

It’s a natural reaction of course, particularly as the long days of summer approach, when teenagers test boundaries more regularly. But well-meaning or not, wrapping them up in cotton wool and placing them under constant surveillance is hugely detrimental to teenagers’ development. If they are not allowed some measure of independence, they will never learn how to gauge risk, to look after themselves or to extract themselves from the fierce grip of peer pressure.

Ana had devoted parents who trusted their daughter with a normal level of freedom for her age, while also subtly monitoring her movements and keeping in constant phone contact. Short of locking her in her bedroom, there was nothing more they could do to keep her safe.

The risk of her coming up against such a force of evil, in a safe and familiar suburb of Dublin, was so remote, so infinitesimal, that it could just not have been foreseen.

Similarly, the chances of such a dark crime being replicated are so tiny that it should not overshadow the summer and force families or teenagers to live in terror.

The most we can do is tell our teenagers the cautionary tale about how a 14-yearold girl was murdered in Dublin amid the most outwardly pedestrian circumstances.

For it’s only by letting them out and about that they learn to read the signs of danger or threat that present themselves only rarely in life, and take steps to keep themselves safe.