In her last text home to her mother, Donegal woman Danielle McLaughlin said she was “safe” with her “friend Vikat”.
“Just to let you know because it’s Holi and a crazy day in India,” wrote Danielle, on Monday, March 13th, 2017, referring to the Hindu festival.
“It’s safe tho. I am not near crowds. The girl I know from the flight, I am with her mates.”
“Be careful please,” replied Andrea Brannigan to her 28-year-old daughter, about whom she “always worried”.
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Danielle was in Goa state, southwest India. She arrived in the country two weeks earlier to learn to teach yoga with plans to then move to Canada “to see if she’d like it there”, says her sister Joleen.
She had known Vikat Bhagat, then 24, since 2016 when she befriended him on a previous visit to Canacona, a coastal city in south Goa popular with young tourists.
In March 2017 she was at a yoga centre in northern Goa when she decided to join an English friend in Canacona for a few days for Holi, the festival of colours. She trusted Bhagat to help her find somewhere to stay. Danielle texted her mother daily when travelling, knowing she fretted about her.
On March 14th, at about 7am local time, a farmer came upon Danielle’s naked body in a field in a remote area outside Canacona. She had been raped and murdered by Bhagat, a man she had referred to as her “brother”.
Earlier this month, on February 14th, Bhagat was found guilty of her rape and murder at the Margoa Principal District and Sessions Court in Goa. On February 17th he was handed two life sentences, for murder and for rape – and a further two years for the destruction of evidence.
[ Man jailed for life for rape and murder of Danielle McLaughlin in IndiaOpens in new window ]
The case took eight years to conclude (Bhagat has 90 days to lodge an appeal) and was before the court more than 250 times. Andrea, her second daughter Joleen McLaughlin-Brannigan (26) and Danielle’s best friend, Louise McMenamin, travelled to India for the verdict.
“You couldn’t hear anything [in the court]. There were no mics,” says Andrea, “and she [the judge] was so far away. But we knew, because the police man turned around and smiled at us when the verdict came, so we knew then it was ‘guilty’.”
A fortnight on, sitting in their small family home in Buncrana, Andrea and Joleen prefer to talk about their bubbly, sensitive, brilliant and kind Danielle than about the man who “destroyed” their future with her.
Andrea was 17 when she had Danielle.
“I was still in school, here in Buncrana. It was hard. I was in Scoil Mhuire and then Crana College, to do my Leaving Cert and then I went into the factory, Fruit of the Loom. It was hard but she was a wile good wain, very popular in school, a brilliant singer, Irish dancer, great at sport,” says Andrea, using the colloquial “wile” as people do instead of “very” in the northwest.
“She didn’t really like Gaelic football but she was very good at it,” she says, with a smile.”
She always wanted us to get out and see the world, always saying there’s so much more than this small town. And she didn’t just want to see it. That’s why she volunteered
— Joleen McLaughlin-Brannigan
Danielle’s parents married – her father John Brannigan, who worked in construction, died in 2015 of asbestosis – and had five more daughters. After Joleen came Seanne (20); Traigheanach (17), Skye (11), and a baby Eire Rose who died in infancy.
“She had her younger sisters ruined, just adored them all,” says Andrea.
“She used be going up around the town and she’d would always have us in tow,” says Joleen. “She never went anywhere without one of us girls with her. She was a brilliant big sister.”
Just before her Leaving Certificate Danielle was diagnosed with dyslexia.
“An Irish teacher picked up on it,” says Andrea, “asked if he’d get her checked. I said, ‘I don’t believe she is. I think she just wants to be running, out gallivanting.' But it turned out she was dyslexic.”
“She was conscious of it, though,” says Joleen, “always checking her spelling. But she never let it hold her back.”
Aged 17, she moved to Liverpool where she studied criminology and sociology at John Moores University. She made close friends and “loved life” there.
Graduating at the age of 21, she didn’t want to start professional life yet. And so began her love of backpacking and volunteer work. She travelled all over Europe, southeast Asia, Nepal and Australia.
She never wanted to “give us worry” says Andrea, but she had a restless spirit.
“She’d say to me: ‘You pick a place and we’ll go volunteering there,‘” says Joleen.
“She always wanted us to get out and see the world, always saying there’s so much more than this small town. And she didn’t just want to see it. That’s why she volunteered. In Nepal she was building schools; she volunteered in an orphanage in Calcutta. That gave her accommodation and she could meet the locals.”
“She was full of energy that could fill a room,” says Andrea, nodding in agreement, and aware Joleen could be seen as the more sensible of the two sisters.
She was afraid of death. She tried to be brave, but she was wile coward too. She was afraid of the dark too – quite sensitive
— Andrea Brannigan
“On Joleen’s 18th birthday she sent her a post saying: ‘I hope I’ll be like you when I grow up.‘”
They only learned during the trial that Danielle had booked a flight from Delhi to Amsterdam for May 2017.
“She must have been planning to surprise us. Again,” says Joleen, laughing.
“She loved doing that. She came home from Australia for one of our wee sister’s communion, walked into the church. No one knew except my dad. He’d have to go and pick her up [at the airport]. She used to do it all the time from Liverpool. Aye, she was a daddy’s girl.”
She returned home to help nurse her father when he was dying in 2015, and her grandfather when he died in late 2016, but couldn’t bear to be present when they died.
“She was afraid of death. She tried to be brave, but she was wile coward too. She was afraid of the dark too – quite sensitive,” says Andrea.
She stayed on after her grandfather’s funeral, over Christmas 2016. She went to see friends in Liverpool and celebrated her birthday in Buncrana on February 4th, 2017, before leaving for India on February 22nd.
After her daughter’s last message, Andrea noticed she hadn’t messaged her on March 14th. “I was thinking she was probably hungover after Holi. I said: ‘I’ll hear from her before the night is out’.
“Then about 7.30 that night, a knock on the door, and it was Louise her best friend and her mother. I said: ‘Is it about Danielle?’ Louise said: ‘Sit down.’ Then I said: ‘Is she dead?’”
Louise had heard of Danielle’s death from a friend in Liverpool, who had seen it on Facebook.
Joleen explains that a Goa-based journalist, trying to reach people who knew Danielle, had posted about the discovery of her body on Facebook.
Bhagat’s assault on Danielle was so violent that her face was unrecognisable. She was identified by someone who recognised a tattoo on her body.
Joleen notes that it was not the Garda who informed them.
“We had to get the Garda involved,” she says. “They were asking us for a number for the Goa police. No one official ever came to our door confirming she was dead, telling us: ‘It’s Danielle.' So we didn’t know whether to believe it was her.
“The papers were putting out the story: ‘Donegal girl dead, 28.’ We were feeling: ‘Stop saying this because yous don’t know.' We didn’t know.”
Because she was travelling on a British passport – having lost her Irish passport – Danielle was first reported to have been British. It took some days for the Passport Office to confirm that Danielle had been issued with an Irish passport, meaning the family could get Irish consular assistance with her case.
[ Taoiseach apologises in person to mother of Danielle McLaughlinOpens in new window ]
A postmortem examination was conducted in India before her body was returned to Ireland on March 24th 2017, with the help of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust charity.
A further postmortem was carried out in Dublin by Prof Marie Therese Cassidy, before Danielle was brought to Belfast for facial reconstruction, using wax sculpting. She was finally brought home to Buncrana on March 27th.
“We thought, if we’d see her, it would give us that closure. But we didn’t get that,” says Joleen. “It was traumatic seeing her, because it wasn’t Danielle. Her red curls were wrong, she was so waxy, and we couldn’t touch her because we might melt the wax.”
They decided on a closed, wicker casket, decorated with yellow flowers “to make it more Danielle” for her funeral.
[ Mourners honour Danielle McLaughlin with vibrant coloursOpens in new window ]
The last eight years been focused on Bhagat’s trial. The family had to fundraise to pay for a legal team in Goa, and for flights at a week’s notice when it became clear the verdict was imminent earlier this month. They had to pay for hotels and taxis.
“We have spent thousands,” says Andrea.
They are critical that families whose loved ones are murdered abroad are not entitled to a Garda liaison officer, or victim support.
“I am glad the trial is over and he’s been found guilty, but it’s that there’s an appeal process and he can appeal twice – I am not accepting it wile well,” she says.
“At the end of the day he destroyed our world. He destroyed my life, the girls’ lives and her friends’ lives. He destroyed Danielle’s future. Danielle will never get married, will never have children – he stole all that from all of us.”
In addition, they still do not know exactly how Danielle died. The death certificate issued in India gives no cause of death, stating only the date and place of death: “in an open place at Adpe Devabag, Canacona, Goa”.
“Her injuries were so extensive, so horrific, we do not know which ones killed her. Did she know she was going to die? Was she scared? We don’t know. We need to hear that explained in a court,” says Joleen.
The family’s Derry-based solicitor, Des Doherty, has applied to Attorney General Rossa Fanning asking that he direct an inquest into Danielle’s death be held, under Section 24 (1) of the 1962 Coroners Act.
Ms McLaughlin’s mother, Andrea McLaughlin, “respectfully requests that an inquest be directed by you in respect of Danielle’s untimely death, on the basis that it is advisable and necessary in the interests of justice”, Mr Doherty said in his letter to Mr Fanning on Wednesday.
The solicitor received an acknowledgment of the correspondence on Thursday.
Donegal coroner, Dr Denis McCauley, and the office of the attorney general, were approached for comment.
Retired Mayo coroner Pat O’Connor said inquests into deaths abroad “do happen”.
He cited the case of Archbishop Michael Courtney, who was shot dead in Burundi where he was papal nuncio, in 2003.
An inquest into his death, conducted in his native Co Tipperary in 2009 by his brother Dr Louis Courtney, found his death was due to shock and haemorrhage caused by bullet wounds to the head, chest and leg fired by persons unknown.
Despite the fact that Danielle died outside Ireland, the family believes it is advisable and in the public interest that a coroner’s court establish the facts of her death.
“We don’t know what her life could have been,” says Joleen.
Danielle would have been 36 had she lived.
“Some of her friends are married and have children. She could have met the love of her life travelling, come home and settled here – we will never know,” says her sister.
“The very least we need for closure is to know how she died.”
