I’ll bring my murdered girl back to the States
Mum’s bid to exhume tragic child
AN American woman whose Irish husband drowned their only daughter says it will be next year before she can exhume her from the coffin she shares with her killer dad.
Rebecca Saunders also revealed she fears “interference from outside parties” in her bid to take her child’s body back to the States.
Farmer Martin Mccarthy, 50, walked into the sea with three-year-old Clarissa in his arms on March, 5, 2013, after Rebecca told him she planned to divorce him.
Rebecca, who has since remarried and had two children with her husband in Texas, believes the tragedy at Audley Cove in
West Cork was an act of revenge. More than €50,000 has been raised to repatriate Clarissa’s remains and Rebecca recently donated €10,000 from the fund to the neonatal unit of Cork University Hospital and Edel House homeless shelter in Cork. She said: “The process is ongoing. I have not been able to take Clarissa home yet, that is definitely going to happen in time, probably closer to next year.” Rebecca also told how she has had to be careful how she shares information as she fears she could be stopped from bringing Clarissa back. She said: “Due to the risk of interference from outside parties trying to prevent me from taking
Clarissa home, I have decided that it would be in my best interest to take a more cryptic approach in my updates on the Gofundme platform and on Twitter.
“After the exhumation happens – and it will happen – I will then be able to safely bring everyone up to speed.
“I can’t wait until the day I can confirm that Clarissa has been exhumed and has been separated from her murderer.
“Until that day, please forgive my need to be a little more guarded”
Mum-of-three Rebecca was just 16 when she went on work experience to Mccarthy’s farm in Ballydehob.
Her parents brought her back home to Los Angeles, but she returned to Cork and married Mccarthy as soon as she turned 18. The distraught mum said she was in a “fog of grief ” when she allowed her little girl to be buried with her father three days after the bodies were recovered.
Launching Clarissa’s Cause earlier this year she said: “I really can’t say that I feel I will ever be able to forgive him.
“I feel like he used his daughter as a sword to stab me in the heart with. And I think that is very, very wrong.”
Rebecca says that some of her happiest times with Clarissa were on the beach where she drowned.
She said: “She loved that beach so much and that is where she spent her last moments.”
I really can’t say that I feel I will ever be able to forgive him REBECCA SAUNDERS ON HER DAUGHTER’S KILLER