MANUELA RIEDO'S grave stands opposite where her parents were married. A simple brown cross on a hilltop overlooking Lake Wohlen marks her final resting place. Every evening, almost without exception, her parents Hans-Peter and Arlette Riedo come to her graveside to light a candle and say a prayer. When they cannot attend, as when they were in Ireland recently, friends come and light the candles instead, writes RONAN McGREEVY
Hinterkappelen, where Manuela grew up, and the nearby village of Wohlen, where she is buried, are about 10km from the Swiss capital Berne. They look what you expect Swiss villages to look like – white churches, a watermill and brown barns – and they overlook the lake which acts as a reservoir for Berne.
Homes, mostly apartments, are strung out along the steep hillside and there are bicycle paths everywhere. There is an orderliness and prosperity about it. A garage just a couple of hundred metres from the Riedo family home sells Ferraris, Bentleys and Maseratis.
“Manuela came into the world here. Everything about her was here, we never had to worry about her. The worst thing that would ever happen is a traffic accident,” says Hans-Peter.
In the local dance studio which Manuela attended, there is a board on the wall in her memory. “For all the girls in the dance group it is very difficult to understand what happened. I could not single out any one girl. They all feel it deeply,” says director Gudrun Blom.
Hans-Peter and Arlette come from the locality of Fribourg in north-west Switzerland. They were married in the town hall which overlooks the graveyard just three weeks before Manuela, their first and only child, was born on November 5th, 1989. They settled nearby in Hinterkappelen. Hans-Peter commutes daily to Berne where he has worked as a cement truck driver for the same firm for 35 years.
Nothing in the family background or Manuela’s upbringing prepared them for her terrible death. Her trip to Galway city in October 2007 to study English was her first abroad without her parents. She was with a group of 43 pupils and two teachers and stayed with the Tierney family in Renmore. Her two-week language course was to help her prepare for a hotel management course she wanted to do in San Diego. Tragically, the letter of acceptance came just two days after she was murdered.
Manuela arrived in Galway on Saturday October 6th. On Monday morning, she walked to class along an isolated pathway known as The Line, a shortcut that links Renmore to the city centre. That evening she took the same route into town against the advice of her host Martin Tierney, unaware of the danger she was about to encounter.
Hans-Peter and Arlette attended the two- week trial of Manuela’s murderer Gerald Barry because they wanted to find out what happened to their daughter. It wounded them greviously when Barry claimed that he had consensual sex with their daughter before strangling her.
Barry had form as a practised liar. In 1996, he was given a five-year sentence for violent disorder arising out of the death of Tipperary man Colm Phelan, who was killed during a fracas in Eyre Square, Galway, in 1996. He was the only one of a gang to plead not guilty and got the heaviest sentence.
He denied any involvement in Manuela’s killing until presented with the overwhelming DNA and mobile phone evidence and the recovery of her mobile phone which he callously sold. His own counsel Martin Giblin described him as an “extremely incompetent individual”.
“There were certain things that were difficult to hear,” says Hans-Peter. “We hoped for the right result. The most important thing is that he was taken off the street.”
THE RIEDO FAMILYhome is a small two bedroom apartment off a road which runs parallel to the lake. They have turned it into a shrine to their daughter. At the entrance stands a crystal vase with a Claddagh ring emblem given to the family by the then mayor of Galway Tom Costello.
The last picture on her camera was of Manuela standing beneath a shopfront representation of a Claddagh ring. Since then her parents have attached great importance to it with its symbols of eternity, love and friendship.
Arlette wears a Claddagh ring that her husband bought her when they visited Galway in January and there will be a Claddagh ring emblem on Manuela’s headstone when it is finished.
Around the vase there are figurines of angels. Though not overtly religious, Manuela loved angels. A white angel dominates her grave and there is also a piece of rock from the Cliffs of Moher. On Easter Saturday night, a local priest recited a poem about angels at her grave.
After the trial, somebody in the public gallery gave a jewellery box with three tiny crystal angels to the couple.
Symbols matter to the Riedos. A forensic scientist took a picture of a robin beside the murder site. When the Riedos visited the site, the robin was still there and a robin comes to their balcony every morning. These things give them small comfort.
Manuela was a very organised person. On the wall in her bedroom there is a chart of her finances – how much she spent on phone credit, how much she spent on other things, how much she saved. She wrote out a detailed list of all the clothes she took to Ireland.
Otherwise, it is like any teenager’s bedroom. Manuela was mad about ice hockey and a jersey of the local Schlittschuh Club Bern hangs on the wardrobe door beside a purple top which she wore on the night before she died. There are pictures of James Blunt and Audrey Hepburn, used concert tickets, CDs and postcards. The room is as it was before she left for Ireland.
“When I wake in the morning, I look in her room. It was the first thing I always did and I still do it,” says Hans-Peter. “It reminds me of the old beautiful world when I look in there. A little bit of Manuela is still there. We cannot put it away because we are not ready for that next step. The graveyard is beautiful for us, but it is not enough. We have to have a part of her in our home.”
Everywhere there are pictures. On the wall in the sitting room, there are portraits of her from when she was born until she was seven. Arlette pulls a folder out of pictures of a smiling, confident teenager in various poses for the camera. “She wanted to send these pictures to all her relatives to tell them that she was not a child anymore,” she says.
The couple have good days and bad days, but all the time they are haunted by dates, not just obvious ones like her birthday and the anniversary of her death, but monthly anniversaries and special events in her life. Last weekend they asked themselves was it appropriate to be at a theatre when it was 18 months since her body was returned to Switzerland. “Immer, immer, immer ,” says Arlette.
What has kept them going has been the love of friends and family, but overwhelmingly the kindness of strangers, especially Irish strangers. When Manuela was murdered they received hundreds of letters, postcards and Mass cards from Irish people. After the trial, they received several hundred more, and still they keep coming.
AFTER SENTENCINGBarry, the trial judge Mr Justice Barry White asked the couple to find it in their hearts to forgive the Irish people, but the Riedos say there is nothing to forgive. Arlette knows little English, but she knows two words only too well: "I'm sorry". While walking the track where her daughter was murdered, a stranger approached her and dismounted from his bicycle to express his condolences. He had tears in his eyes.
Swiss people, she says, are reserved and don’t know what to say. “I ask them how they are and then I say to them that it is okay to ask me how I am,” she explains. She mimics the three kisses which are a traditional Swiss greeting. “Irish people give me three kisses and a hug.”
The trial and its aftermath has been huge news in Switzerland. Irishman Brendan McGuinness, who owns Mcguinness’s Irish pub in the centre of Basle, followed it daily. He experienced the same emotions of utter pity that anybody would feel seeing such a transparently decent couple suffer such appalling evil, but he also felt angry.
Manuela’s killing was no arbitrary act of violence, but was carried out by a man with dozens of convictions who had been in trouble with the law from an early age. It took Det Supt PJ Durkin 20 minutes to read the list of previous convictions before Barry was given a life sentence for murder.
“Manuela was failed by the Irish state. If this man had been locked up as he should have been, Manuela would still be alive today,” McGuinness says. “I’m proud to be Irish, but I’m ashamed that nobody in the Irish Government apologised to the family.”
McGuinness is behind a foundation launched in Basle yesterday to raise money to help victims of rape and sexual assault. The Riedos have given it their backing, and it will bear Manuela’s name. It is hoped that a concert will be held in the national stadium in Berne on July 25th to raise funds and McGuinness has secured the services of a veritable who’s who of Irish folk acts including The Chieftains, The Dubliners, The Wolfe Tones, Sharon Shannon and the Kilfenora Céilí Band.“There are so many people who want to help who don’t want the image of Ireland sullied by what happened to this lovely family. It’s the least we can do,” says McGuinness.
[ www.manuela-riedo-foundation.chOpens in new window ]
THE MESSAGES
Extracts from letters the Riedos received from Galway:
"For the short time Manuela stayed with us we got the chance to meet a wonderful person, someone we will never forget. Manuela will always be with us in our thoughts and prayers"
– Martin and Carol Tierney (Manuela's host family in Galway)
"All in Galway are shocked that someone like that evil man lived among us. No words can ease your pain, but all I can say is that, as a mother of two, we will keep you in our prayers"
– Galway
"I just wanted to tell you that at some stage of your lives you may find strength somewhere to travel to Galway, Ireland, to try and make some sense and to come to some sort of terms with this dreadful happening that has come to your door"
– Galway
"My deepest sympathy to you both. We also feel a little of your loss. So sorry that this had to happen to your beautiful daughter Manuela. Our thoughts are with you at this time"
– Gort