Howard link ruled out after bodies exhumed

GARDAÍ who exhumed four bodies from a graveyard close to the home of a convicted rapist and murderer say they are satisfied that information they had received about an illegal burial, while incorrect, was reliable and was given in good faith.

They are not pursuing the matter after no evidence of another body was uncovered. The operation, which involved more than 20 gardaí, including crime scene investigators, lasted nine hours yesterday.

It was not linked to any disappearance or known crime in the region, gardaí say.

The traumatic and sensitive operation at the Fitzpatrick family grave at St Anne’s Cemetry in Ballylinan, Co Laois, took place just five miles from the homeplace of rapist and murderer Robert Howard.

Speculation was rife in the commuter village, which lies an hour from Dublin and a half-hour from Carlow, that the grave had contained the remains of one of the women who disappeared without trace in the midlands over the past 12 years.

Gardaí had received information in the past weeks that the body of a woman whose hands and feet had been bound with rope had been put into the grave 11 years ago.

The woman’s body was supposed to have been deposited there on the eve of Ned Fitzpatrick’s funeral in the cemetery.

Gardaí had been told that the remains had been uncovered on the day but that the burial went ahead all the same.

Four bodies were removed from the large plot yesterday. Further excavation of the grave failed to locate a fifth person’s remains.

Garda Superintendent Kevin Donoghue said gardaí are satisfied that there is no substance to the information they had received.

“The information we were acting on that there was a further body there was incorrect but we are satisfied it was relatively reliable. It was felt the only way to decide whether it was or it wasn’t true was to do what we did. It was a traumatic and sensitive operation but it had to be done. That line is now closed,” he said.

He said there was no connection between the operation and any other specific crime.

“This was stand-alone information. Had it been right, we would then have had to link it back. We are now in a position to firmly state that there is no unaccounted body at this site and the line is firmly drawn under that source of information.”

He said the information related only to the grave excavated and there are no plans to exhume bodies from any other graves.

John Carter’s sister, Lilly, who died 32 years ago, is buried in the plot adjoining the one exhumed.

Yesterday, he said he was glad the operation had not uncovered anything sinister and was anxious that the site be fully reinstated.

“I’ve had reassurances from the gardaí that everything will be put back in place. That’s all we wanted,” he said.