New plea by gardaí in Kerry Babies cold case
THE LEAD investigator in the unsolved murder of the ‘Kerry Baby’ has made an emotional plea to the local community as detectives yesterday began house-to-house inquiries on Valentia Island in Co. Kerry.
These are the first door-to-door inquiries in 34 years in the cold case of five-day old ‘Baby John’, found washed up and stabbed on a strand near Cahersiveen in 1984.
‘After all these years, baby John deserves the truth,’ said Superintendent Flor Murphy, who is leading the investigation.
Gardaí believe it is likely that baby John could have gone into the water at Valentia Island. The baby’s body, had been stabbed several times, was discovered in April 1984.
The discovery of the baby’s body, and the subsequent discovery a second baby’s body on a farm near Abbeydorney in north Kerry became known as the Kerry Babies case.
Local woman Joanne Hayes was charged with the murder of Baby John in May 1984. The charge of murder against her and charges of concealment of the birth against members of her family were subsequently dropped on the instruction of the DPP.
Ms Hayes and her family claimed that gardaí had threatened and coerced them into making a false confessions. Gardaí later apologised.
In January 2018, the garda serious crime review team began a review of the investigation, and local Kerry officers are being supported by the Serious Crime Review Team.
A Garda review of the DNA evidence, announced in January 2018, confirmed that Ms Hayes was not the mother of the infant found at White Strand.
The door-to-door inquires are part of the work of that cold-case review. A number of DNA samples have been taken in Kerry by the cold case team in an attempt to establish the infant’s parentage.
Superintendent Murphy said: ‘Baby John lived for five days so someone, somewhere knows about his very short life.’