DNA tests rule Jastine killer out of historic sex attacks
KILLER Mark Hennessy has been ruled out of having committed other unsolved crimes after genetic tests were carried out using the Garda’s DNA database, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.
On Saturday, May 19, witnesses saw Filipina student Jastine Valdez, 24, being bundled into the boot of a car near her home in Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow.
Ms Valdez’s strangled body was found two days later, a day after Hennessy, 40, was shot dead in a south Dublin business park after being confronted by gardaí.
Investigating gardaí are awaiting the results of forensic tests to establish whether the student was sexually assaulted.
But in the immediate aftermath of the woman’s death, there were fears that Hennessy, who lived in Bray, Co. Wicklow with his wife and two children, may have been involved in a series of unsolved sex crimes.
However, senior sources have told the Irish Daily Mail that Hennessy’s DNA has been ‘run through’ the DNA database and he is ‘not linked genetically in any way’ to any other crime.
A source said: ‘There was a lot of speculation that Hennessy could have been involved in other sexual attacks and other more violent crime in the months and years before his appalling crime in May. This has now essentially been ruled out. It is believed that Mark Hennessy’s crime, though at the highest end of the scale, was an isolated attack.’
Hennessy’s reported abduction of Ms Valdez in broad daylight sparked a massive manhunt on May 19. His death – as he brandished a knife in his black Nissan Qashqai which he had parked at Cherrywood Business Park – arose out of a fear that he had the Filipina student with him and may have been subjecting her to a fresh assault.
Ms Valdez’s strangled body was found the following day on a disused golf course in south Dublin. Gardaí believe Hennessy, who was originally from Ballybrack in Dublin, killed the young woman within an hour of abducting her.
The fatal shooting of Hennessy on Sunday, May 20, is currently the subject of an investigation by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, as is protocol.
The Mail revealed last week that the heartbroken widow of Mark Hennessy has left her home in Bray and relocated her young family to live with a relative in the UK. His wife and the couple’s two young daughters are now living with her sister in England, it is understood. The mother of two may then move back to her native Wales in the coming months.
A senior source said: ‘She simply cannot stay in Ireland after the horror that unfolded. It is completely understandable and she has two very young children to think of.
‘She is also a victim in all of this and her life has been torn apart.’
Ms Valdez was buried in her hometown of Aritao in the Philippines last week. It is understood that her parents, Danilo and Teresita, plan to return to Ireland in 2019. They have lived in Ireland for 18 years and have built a life here, sources said.
Full medical reports determining if Ms Valdez was sexually assaulted by Hennessy before she was strangled have not yet been returned to gardaí.
Neither have toxicology results determining if alcohol and drugs were in the killer’s system, which gardaí suspect was the case.
The toxicology results will first be proffered to GSOC, not gardaí, as has taken over the investigation into his death.
Gardaí have not established any link between Hennessy and the accountancy student and say there remains nothing to suggest there was a connection. However, gardaí are still waiting to look at phone records from Hennessy and his victim.
The Mail previously revealed that gardaí established that the married man had a profile on dating app Tinder. But records from his online activity has not yet been secured as ‘obtaining digital information and records can take months’, a source said.
‘Digital records can take months’