Jastine’s parents reveal her poignant final letter
■ Parents of tragic student ‘sad’ murderer Hennessy shot dead
THE parents of tragic Jastine Valdez have said they were disappointed her murderer died before they could learn his motivation.
Ms Valdez’s mother also revealed she had a “gut feeling something terribly wrong had happened” when her daughter didn’t return home.
Speaking in their first interview since her death, parents Danilo (Danny) and Teresita (Tess) Valdez told ‘Today with Miriam O’Callaghan’ on RTÉ Radio One they were still in shock.
They were “disappointed” murderer Mark Hennessy was killed so quickly, because they still have so many questions they’d like to ask him.
The Filipino student (24) was abducted and murdered by Hennessy on May 19. She had moved to Ireland to join her parents three years ago.
They had come here to work in the 1990s, sending their wages home to their family in the Philippines with the hope that they could provide for all their daughter’s “hopes and dreams”.
Ms Valdez studied accounting and finance at Tallaght IT, working part-time jobs, such as a carer, and in a restaurant in Bray, Co Wicklow, to fund her studies.
When she didn’t return home at 5.30pm on the Saturday evening as agreed, her mother Tess said she prayed in her bedroom.
“I knew...there was sort of a gut feeling in me that I knew that something wrong, something terribly wrong, had happened,” Tess told RTÉ, speaking through an interpreter at times.
“I don’t know what exactly happened then, I kept on collapsing when I knew something was wrong.
“I couldn’t remember much from the time, I just knew something had happened her.”
Tess said her daughter always kept her word about what time she would be home.
“I was at work at the time and Danny was on his way home. I asked him to check where Jastine was and he said she’s not home yet,” she said.
“I tried calling her many times but she wasn’t picking up.
“I started worrying. I tried calling Danny at home because I was still in work. He tried to check outside the gate.”
She said she didn’t watch the television.
Unbelievable
“We called straight away to the gardaí, to tell them that my daughter did not arrive home at the time she said.
“The garda asked me the details, what time did she leave, where did she go, what was she wearing,” she added.
“When I went to the gardaí and told them my daughter was missing, they promised me they would find her, 100pc they would find her.
“It’s unbelievable, we can’t believe that’s what happened.”
The couple said they were told on the Sunday that gardaí were still looking for Jastine and on Monday were told her body had been found.
It didn’t ease the pain when Hennessy was killed in a standoff with gardaí.
“It didn’t matter, Jastine was gone, we were also sad he had passed away,” said her mother.
“We felt bad that he was killed quite quickly because we wanted to find out what was running in his head.”