Raonaid suspect is ruled out after DNA test
Woman moved to US
A SUSPECT i n the 1999 murder of Raonaid Murray has been ruled out of Garda inquiries after she voluntarily supplied a DNA sample from the U.S.
Security sources have revealed that the woman was believed to have stabbed the 17-year-old in a jealous rage.
She left Ireland a short time after the killing and relocated to the U.S. After several years of trying to locate her, detectives tracked her down and through Interpol, recently approached her and asked if she would provide a gene sample.
DNA under Raonaid’s fingernails, believed to belong to her killer, is a female profile.
However, the sample provided by the woman in America was not a match. The Serious Crime Review
Tracked down
in the U.S.
Team, commonly known as the cold case unit, has been reviewing the unsolved murder and security sources say the investigation is ongoing, despite the setback.
A number of female friends and acquaintances of Raonaid’s are being sought to provide DNA samples. Nobody has been charged over her death and the murder weapon, a knife, has not been recovered. Gardaí believe Raonaid was stabbed to death by a young woman known to her.
They have established that the teenager was last seen in a laneway between Silchester Road and her home i n Silchester Park, Glenageary, south Dublin, on the night she was killed in September 1999. She was heard arguing with a man and a woman.
Gardaí suspect that the woman then stabbed her to death before the pair fled.
Security sources have said that the suspect who gave the DNA sample from the U.S. was believed to have attacked Raonaid because a man she hoped to become romantically involved with was interested in the teenager.
Gardaí also tracked down a second woman in the U.S. whose DNA they were seeking as part of their wider inquiries. She was also an acquaintance of Raonaid’s but not a suspect. She too provided a DNA sample and it was not a match.
A DNA trawl of women the victim knew is under way and gardaí are determined to obtain a sample from all of the estimated 50 women on the list.
Raonaid was stabbed four times in the side, chest and shoulder with a 1.5in sharp knife in Silchester Crescent.
Her murderer escaped and the teenager staggered 200ft before she collapsed and died.
Her body was found by her sister Sarah 50 yards from her home, at 12.20am on the morning of Saturday, September 4, 1999.
She had not been sexually assaulted and none of her possessions had been stolen.
Some 100 gardaí were assigned to the case at its peak. By 2008, more than 8,000 people had been interviewed in the inquiry and almost 3,000 statements taken. There have been more than 12 arrests.
DNA databases across Europe have also been searched in the hunt for the killer but they have failed to yield a match.