A BROTHER of murder victim Sharon Whelan (30) spoke yesterday of the “horror” for his family of hearing the circumstances surrounding the deaths of his sister and her two daughters, Nadia (2) and Zara (7) on Christmas morning 2008.
John Whelan told reporters: “It’s been horrific for us.” He was speaking after having to sit through evidence at an inquest in Kilkenny city into the deaths of the three family members.
The bodies of Sharon, Nadia and Zara were pulled from a fire at their house in Roscon, Windgap, Co Kilkenny, by neighbours who spotted smoke and flames coming from the old farmhouse at about 8.30am on December 25th, 2008.
At first it was believed all three had died in a tragic house fire, possibly caused by faulty Christmas lights, but as an investigation into their deaths progressed, a sinister picture of murder and arson emerged.
In a statement read to Kilkenny Coroner’s Court yesterday, Ms Whelan’s father Christy Whelan said his daughter was “very excited about Christmas”.
He said he brought “Santa’s toys to Sharon’s house” after he “got the all-clear from Sharon that the children had gone to bed at around 10.45pm”.
He said he “parked up at the gate for fear the children might have heard the car outside. I handed over the presents and said ‘see you in the morning’.”
The court heard how her father tried to ring Ms Whelan three times the next morning to see “how Santa had gone”.
Shortly after 9am, the family heard there was a fire at the house and that the bodies of Ms Whelan, Zara and Nadia had been found inside. A postmortem confirmed Zara and Nadia had both died of smoke inhalation, but no smoke was discovered in Sharon’s lungs.
Ms Whelan’s body was examined at Waterford Regional Hospital, where ligature marks were found on her neck. It emerged she had been strangled and had died before the fire started. An extensive Garda inquiry began, and detectives interviewed almost 300 people and took DNA samples and fingerprints from individuals known to be close to Ms Whelan.
On January 15th, 2009, a man was arrested in connection with the fire. Two days later, postal worker Brian Hennessy (23) appeared at a special sitting of Kilkenny District Court charged with Sharon Whelan’s murder.
DNA evidence had linked Hennessy to the house, where he had strangled Ms Whelan before setting fire to the building in the early hours of Christmas morning.
Hennessy pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court last November to all three murders and received three life sentences, two of which are to run consecutively.
John Whelan said he hoped “in time” his family “would learn to cope” with the loss of Sharon, Zara and Nadia. His parents’ strength and the support of the close family “is what’s keeping us going from day to day”.