Gardaí have new lead in Kerry baby case

NEW information has been received and DNA samples have been requested from several local people in south Kerry, senior investigators in the 1984 Kerry Baby case have said.

DNA is being used to try to establish the identity of the mother and the father of the infant – who would have turned 34 ten days ago. The days’ old baby was found with multiple stab wounds on the White Strand in Cahersiveen on April 14, 1984.

The parentage of the baby and the circumstances surrounding his murder remain unsolved. Last January gardaí, assisted by the serious crime review team known as the cold-case team announced that they had obtained ‘a viable DNA profile’ of the baby from a sample taken in the course of the original investigation.

The DNA analysis has ruled out Joanne Hayes, the north Kerry woman wrongly suspected of being his mother, gardaí revealed in January.

The force has issued an apology to Ms Hayes for the stress she had endured.

Gardaí believe the answer lies locally. Kerry Chief Supt Tom Myres has now said that the investigation is ‘very active at the moment’.

‘We are not only going back over some documents from the original investigation, but we are also getting new information,’ he said at a briefing to the Joint Policing Committee (JPC) in Tralee, Co. Kerry.

A number of lines of inquiry were being pursued and a lot of work had been done, he added. He thanked the public in south Kerry for their cooperation and appealed to them to continue to assist the investigation.

DNA from relatives such as siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents could pinpoint the parentage of the baby.