GARDAÍ HAVE begun a review of the original investigation into the killing in 1970 of 10-year-old Bernadette Connolly, whose remains were found in a bog four months after she disappeared near her home in Co Sligo.
A priest known to the dead girl’s family was the chief suspect in the case. He has since died. A second man also fell under suspicion.
It was alleged in a written Dáil question this week that a senior member of the Catholic Church was given a copy of the Garda file at the time of the original investigation.
The investigation will look at whether the suspect was not interviewed because he was a priest; will seek to solve the murder and will examine whether there was co-operation between the clergy and any member of the Garda.
Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy has appointed Assistant Commissioner Kieran Kenny, head of policing in the northern region, to carry out the review.
The dead girl’s family went public about the case after the publication last month of the Dublin diocesan report. They spoke of their feelings after reading in the report about collusion between the church and some gardaí.
Family members were interviewed by Gerry Ryan on RTÉ 2FM, prompting widespread renewed media attention to be focused on the case.
That media campaign and the family’s appeal for a new Garda investigation have led to the fresh review. Gardaí have already begun liaising with the Connolly family and have assured them the review will be comprehensive.
The dead girl’s sister, Kerrie Aldridge, told The Irish Times the case had been “hanging over” her family for 40 years. She said her mother, Maureen, and father, Gerry, never recovered and had both died not knowing who killed their child.
“Bernie was killed two years before I was born and I never knew a time in my life when my mother wasn’t sick. She never recovered; she was riddled with cancer and died when she was only 48 years old.”
Her father Gerry, who died in 1999, had been “tormented” by his daughter’s killing. “You’d hear him in the room at night tossing and turning constantly, talking in his sleep and giving out in his sleep. He was tormented.”
She said the family met with gardaí yesterday and were “delighted” with the new review and at the way they were now being listened to. “We just want answers. We want to be able to stand over Bernie’s grave and say ‘We did our best for you’.”
Bernadette Connolly was abducted near her home in Collooney on April 17th, 1970, while cycling to a neighbour’s house.
Almost four months later, her body was found in a bog on the side of the Curlew Mountains in Co Roscommon, about 24km (15 miles) from where she was last seen alive. She had been strangled. It is also suspected she was sexually assaulted.
