Mother charged with murder of daughter

A MOTHER was charged yesterday with the murder of her teenage daughter.

Lynn Gibbs, who is a patient at the Central Mental Hospital, appeared before Dún Laoghaire District Court in Dublin to face the charge.

Her daughter, Ciara Gibbs, aged 16, was found dead at the family home in Gowran, Co Kilkenny, last November.

Ciara’s body was discovered in the bath by her father Gerard after he returned home with his son from a trip.

He also found his wife, a 46-year-old psychiatrist, collapsed in an upstairs bedroom at their detached home in Killure, Gowran.

Lynn Gibbs, formerly Lynn Hutchinson, was afterwards admitted to St Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin, before being subsequently transferred to the Central Mental Hospital.

Sergeant Patrick Whelan of Graiguenamanagh Garda Station, Co Kilkenny, gave details of arrest, charge and caution at Dún Laoghaire court yesterday morning.

He said he met Ms Gibbs, accompanied by hospital staff, by arrangement in the grounds of the courthouse and arrested her just before 10am yesterday.

He said he charged her with the murder of her daughter on November 26, 2006, and that she made no reply.

Superintendent Aidan Roche from Thomastown Garda Station, Co Kilkenny, told the court the prosecution’s Book of Evidence would be ready in four weeks’ time.

He applied for the accused to be remanded in custody.

Ciara Gibbs was in transition year in school at the time of her death. She was awarded 10 ‘A’ grades in her Junior Cert last year and was preparing for the Irish Maths Olympics, which take place this month. She had been in Maynooth at a maths course for gifted students on the day she died.