Parents carry Megan to final resting place

MURDERED Belfast teenager Megan McAlorum was carried by her mother and father to her final resting place yesterday.

Hundreds of people packed into St Oliver Plunkett Church in the Lenadoon area for her Requiem Mass.

Many, including friends and former classmates at St Genevieve’s school, stood outside weeping.

The 16-year-old’s body was discovered in woods on the outskirts of west Belfast on Easter Monday. She had suffered head injuries.

A 16-year-old youth has been charged with her murder and a 24-year-old man has been charged with withholding information.

As crowds lined the route of the funeral procession, members of the family including her mother Margaret and father Frankie, helped carry the white coffin from her home in Glencolin Way.

A floral tribute with the words “sister” was prominently displayed in the hearse, from her brothers Frankie, Richard and Stephen and sisters Lynne, Paula, and Kirsty.

Father Martin Magill said Megan was a friendly and popular girl whose death had touched many hearts in the tight-knit community.

“I was particularly struck by the description that one of Megan’s aunts, Geraldine, used about her when she said: ‘Megan was bursting with life’.”

Megan’s coffin was taken for burial to the City Cemetery.