A two-year search for an abducted child has ended in tragedy after the six-year-old girl and her father were discovered shot dead in a house in Clonmel, Co Tipperary.
The bodies of Mr Christopher Crowley (44) and his daughter, Deirdre, were found after gardaí made their second visit to the house yesterday and heard a muffled sound as they approached the rented home in which the two lived.
The gardaí forced their way into the house, on Colville Road, where they discovered the bodies of Mr Crowley and his daughter. A firearm was found at the scene.
Mr Crowley, who was separated from his wife, had taken Deirdre out for the day on December 4th, 1999, but never returned. A widespread search for the two failed to locate them, despite television and radio appeals by the child's mother, Ms Christine O'Sullivan.
Speaking at her home in Greenhills, Douglas, Cork, last night, Ms O'Sullivan spoke of her grief at the loss of her child. "I just don't believe it. It hasn't sunk in yet. I can't believe that I won't see my baby again, especially when we were so close to finding her," she said.
"I thought I was going to be holding her in my arms this evening and cuddling her and telling her how much I missed her and telling her how hard I worked to try to find her."
The incident happened on a quiet scenic road on the outskirts of the town, near the foothills of the Comeragh mountains. The area is one of the most sought-after in Clonmel.
Neighbours expressed shock at what had happened but said they had never met Mr Crowley and did not know how long he and his daughter had been living in the area.
Chief Supt Pat O'Boyle, who is leading the investigation, said gardaí from Clonmel became suspicious of the male occupant of a house while carrying out inquiries in the Colville Road area at about 3.15 p.m.
"Gardaí left the scene to make further inquiries and subsequently returned to the vicinity of the house and while approaching the home heard a muffled sound which caused them concern," he said.
"Failing to gain entry, they forced their way into the house and found the bodies of a middle-aged male and a young child, aged approximately five to 10 years, dead in the house." He declined to elaborate on the nature of the inquiries gardaí had been carrying out in the first place or to say whether they had been acting on a tip-off about Mr Crowley's presence.
One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said gardaí had called to her home to inquire about rogue builders.
Ms Mary Horan, a primary school principal who lives directly across from the house where the tragedy occurred, said neighbours were "flabbergasted" by what had happened.
"This is a very quiet area and something like this is the last thing you would expect. It's awful," she said.
Mr Crowley and his daughter kept to themselves to the extent that some neighbours believed the house was unoccupied. Ms Horan said she noticed a car parked there some weekends but she had never seen the little girl. Another neighbour said her children had seen a man in the garden on occasion but otherwise she had had no contact with the people in the house.
The State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, was due at the scene late last night. The bodies were then to be removed to Waterford Regional Hospital for a post-mortem examination. Members of the Garda Technical Bureau also travelled to the scene.
There were concerns early on in the search for the child that Mr Crowley had taken her to Britain after his car was discovered in Wexford.
At the time, Sgt Brian Fitzgerald, of Douglas Garda station in Cork, had said: "If a four-yearold girl was taken by a stranger, the whole country would be up in arms. But because it was her father, people don't seem to be as concerned. They say that the case is sad, but tend to think that she is safe with her father."
See also page 5