Family of murder victims say they’re serving life sentence

The family of a 30-year-old Kilkenny woman murdered with her two young children almost five years ago have spoken of the life sentence they will serve as the killer of their loved ones moves closer to potential freedom.

The bodies of Sharon Whelan and her daughters Zarah, 7, and Nadia, 2, were found following a fire at their home in Windgap, Co Kilkenny, on Christmas Day, 2008. In 2009, Brian Hennessy, a local postman, was convicted of raping the single mother before strangling her, setting fire to her rented home, and killing the girls. He was initially sentenced to three life sentences with two to run consecutively, but he won an appeal which saw the sentence reduced to three concurrent life sentences.

Ms Whelan’s parents, Christy and Nancy, and brother, John, yesterday spoke to the Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk of the events on the day of the tragedy, as well as its aftermath. Christy Whelan told how, the night before the tragedy, he travelled the mile or so to his daughter’s rented house to leave off the Christmas presents, trying not to wake the children.