The death of 13-year-old Jamie Maughan has shocked local people, reports Kitty Holland, from Cavan
A black ribbon was pinned to the door of number 4, Ard na Gréine, on the outskirts of Cavan town yesterday.
No one was in. Instead a simple note adorned the ribbon: "Please pray for the happy repose of the soul of Jamie Maughan who died on Friday, July 2nd. May she rest in peace."
It remains unclear when or how the 13-year-old girl died. She was found last Friday lying face up behind a vacant house in the well-kept Harmony Heights estate, a little less than half a mile from where she had lived.
Flowers - bunches lying in piles as well as wreaths including a big one of pink and white flowers forming the word Jamie - lay outside the cordoned-off house in Harmony Heights yesterday.
Forensic experts worked inside the house, as well as at two other houses on the same road said to have been rented to Brazilians. Jamie is understood to have been friendly with a Brazilian who was living in one of these houses.
The Brazilians are working in nearby Liffey Meats in Ballyjamesduff.
Among the issues the Garda technical experts are seeking to establish is whether Jamie died alone, whether she had struggled and indeed whether she died in the spot where her body was found.
Neighbours in each of the estates shared a sense of shock and disbelief, though mainly sadness, that such a young life had been lost.
"It hasn't really sunk in," said Lisa Rudden (16), a pupil in Cavan Vocational School, where Jamie had been in her first year. Wearing the blue and grey school uniform yesterday she explained she had just been part of the school's guard of honour for Jamie at the funeral.
Asked what Jamie's interests were she smiled immediately. "Clothes and music. She loved all music and was always doing dance routines, always laughing and just mixed very well."
In Harmony Heights, one resident, Miss Sonya Crowe, said she was in a state of shock. Looking over towards the flowers and the three Garda vans, she said: "You see it on the tele but when it happens on your own doorstep. And then to think you were passing that house last week and there was a body there, well it's very hard to take in."
Another local person, Miss Jackie Doyle, said she was "very disappointed with the coverage on the news before Jamie was found". Comparing the coverage to that when two schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing in England two years ago, she described the "scant coverage" as disgraceful. "She was a 13-year-old girl gone missing, a child. And no one even really knew."
Another neighbour expressed concern that the Brazilian community in the town would be "tarred with the rumour brush". He said it had not been established that Jamie's Brazilian friends had anything to do with her death.
Supt Joe Sullivan, who is leading the investigation, confirmed the houses being searched were let to Brazilians. Fears that the reporting of their possible connection to Jamie's disappearance could lead to a backlash against the community "was a factor to be considered", he said.
Jamie's family were angry at the media yesterday. Gathered in the town's Breffni Inn, family members politely said they did not want to talk to journalists "ever again".
A cousin of Ms Josephine Farrelly, Jamie's mother, said coverage in yesterday's newspapers had upset the family deeply. In particular, references to the family as Travellers, to reports that Jamie had died as a result of a drug overdose, or had choked on her own vomit, or that the family had asked the Garda to search the Harmony Heights house last Monday, had upset the family. "We are not gypsies," she said.
She said that while Jamie's father was a settled Traveller, her mother was not and the two parents had split up 12 years ago.
She said Ms Farrelly had been particularly upset by reports her daughter had been using drugs. "None of that is fact. No one has said that. It's bad enough having to bury your own child but to have to face all that in the papers on the same morning is a disgrace".
She also said quotes attributed to the family criticising the Garda investigation had not been said by the family. She said some of the gardaí were "fantastic" and she particularly praised Garda Michelle Moran. "She sat up with us until five in the morning."
Supt Sullivan said reports that Jamie had died from drugs were speculation. Toxicology reports would not be available until tomorrow "at the earliest", he added.