8KRIEGEL MURDER WAS MY FINAL STRAW
State pathologist Marie quit over horror of teen’s killing
MARIE Cassidy has revealed how attending the murder scene of 14-year-old schoolgirl Ana Kriegel prompted her to quit her job as State pathologist. Dr Cassidy said the sight of the tragic teen’s naked and battered body in a derelict farmhouse in Lucan, Dublin proved to be “the straw that broke my back”. Gardai found Ana on May 17, 2018 – three days after she left her Leixlip home with a boy from her class. She was naked but for a pair of socks and had been sexually assaulted. Marie Cassidy performed the postmortem and identified extensive injuries to the young girl’s head and neck as the cause of death. She revealed: “We talk about the straw that breaks the camel’s back. That was the straw that broke my back. “That was when I decided to leave. Because normally I would go into a scene and I would think right, what do I need to do?... and I’m focused. “But that was the first time in a long, long time that I just stood there and went ‘who would do that, and why would they do that?’ “As soon as those words came out of my mouth I knew, that’s time to go. “I’d been thinking about it, thinking ‘well I’ve got a few years left what’ll I do?’ but that day made up my mind for me.” Two 13-year-old boys, identified in court as Boy A and Boy B, were convicted of Ana’s murder. Boy A was also convicted of aggravated sexual assault. The court heard Boy A wore a zombie mask during the attack. His phone contained searches for child abuse, and thousands of pornographic images including sexual violence. Dr Cassidy opens up about the case in the concluding part of her RTE series Dr Cassidy’s Casebook which airs tomorrow night. Blinking back tears she revealed: “Dealing with children is always difficult. “Very early on somebody mentioned that they thought it might be somebody that she knew and that they might be young, and that is when I thought ‘Good Lord’. “You know I’ve seen a lot of things and, you know, I’ve seen some horrendous things. I can honestly say that this was not the most horrendous murder I’ve ever seen. “But there was just something about that, about children killing children, that just, I thought, ‘no, if that’s what society’s become, I need out’.” Ana was beaten to death. Bloodstained sticks and bricks were found at the scene and sent for DNA analysis. Dr Cassidy continued: “I just had to pull myself together and just say ‘right’ as I’ve always said – from the very first time I cried at a post-mortem when I had two babies to deal with. “And I thought ‘for goodness sakes, just pull yourself together, this does not help anybody. “‘This is what you’re here to do, get on with it and make sure that you do a damn good job’.” Again becoming emotional she added: “I think from the family’s point of view that it’s important that they hear, em, that she did not suffer for a long period of time. “We can’t sugarcoat things. It’s all going to be read out in court, whatever I write in that report, so the family are going to hear it... “So you have to be careful how you phrase things and there’s no point in trying to make things better because how can you make anything better? – your daughter’s dead.”
Something about this case just made me realise that I needed out