Grieving father wants son’s body home

The heartbroken father of Enda McLaughlin has revealed how he always thought his son would die in tragic circumstances.

Enda McLaughlin, 27, from Carndonagh in Co Donegal, died after being struck by a car in Germany, following a suspected stabbing spree.

He has been accused of first stabbing a taxi driver after travelling from the Dutch city of Heerlen to Aachen in Germany.

Then he is believed to have demanded money from a passerby. When the man refused to give him any, he stabbed him.

Mr McLaughlin is then understood to have hailed another taxi and asked to be taken to Cologne. During the journey he asked the driver to pull into a lay by so he could go to the toilet.

It is understood that, while he was out of the car, the driver heard his description on the radio and he sped away. Mr McLaughlin is believed to have then stabbed a truck driver.

He then ran across the motorway but was struck by a passing car and killed instantly.

“If I am to be honest I’ll say that deep down that I always thought Enda would die like this. “I know what everyone is saying but I just need my son home.

“At the end of the day he is my son, my youngest child and he will always be that to me,” he said.

Speaking from his small cottage two miles outside Carndonagh, the broken father-of-five revealed how he only spoke to his son a week ago when he telephoned him from Holland.

“I honestly thought he had left Ireland behind and that he was going to make something of his life.

Patrick said his son was never really given a fair go at an ordinary life after his mother Elizabeth walked out on him and the family from an early age.

“He was never close to his mother because she left us early on

“I tried the best I could to put clothes on his back and food on the table, but it was difficult. But he was always up against it. From his early teens he began to get in trouble.

“But the system let him down. He had mental health problems like his mother and he needed help but he didn’t get it.

“We are just ordinary people and Enda fell in with the wrong company,” he said.

Patrick said that Enda’s older siblings, Daniel, Jonathan, Ellen and Catherine Bernadette, are struggling to cope with their brother’s passing.

“My other children are devastated too but they also felt that something might one day happen to Enda. It’s just so hard to take all this in,” he added.

“At this stage I’m not sure how we will get Enda home. I just need to get him home.

“I need to be able to see him and to hold him and to place him in a coffin and to be able to visit his grave. I suppose that’s what any father wants if they are unfortunate enough to lose a child,” added Patrick.

McLaughlin’s mother died in fire

A coroner described spontaneous human combustion as “probably an urban myth” at the inquest into the death of Enda McLaughlin’s 50-year-old mother on Dec 31, 2010.

Coroner Dr John Madden said when he saw the remains of Elizabeth McLaughlin, of 42 Close Padraig, Carndonagh, Co Donegal, spontaneous human combustion came to mind.

A garda described finding the charred remains on the floor of the sitting room with the damage just confined to the remains and the immediate vicinity.

The inquest heard from Harry Masterson, partner of Ms McLaughlin for the previous 12 years.

He had stayed with her over Christmas and then returned to his home in Moville on 30 December to collect medication.

Normally, Ms McLaughlin would have rung him around 7am every day, but that had not happened and he became concerned and took the bus to Carndonagh on 31 December at 9.30am.

Dolores Loftus, a niece of Ms McLaughlin, had tried to get into the house when she heard the smoke alarm going off at 10.20am but she had been unable to get in.

Mr Masterson eventually gained access to the house with the help of a nephew.

Kevin Loftus told the inquest he smelled smoke and saw a dead cat.

“I kept looking for my aunt and I discovered two more dead cats lying on the floor,” said Mr Loftus.

“I saw what I thought was a burnt Christmas tree lying on the sitting room floor and I kept searching for her and felt relieved she was not in the house. I let the others in the door.

“Dolores said in the sitting room ‘there is her shoe’. It was then I realised it was a leg — I could not believe what I was seeing and I put everyone out. It took me a couple of minutes to get my head straight and then I rang 999.”

Dental records and DNA from Ms McLaughlin’s hairbrush were required to formally identify the deceased.

“Inside the sitting room on the floor were the charred remains of a person. An unusual aspect was that the actual burning and fire damage were confined to the human remains on the floor and the immediate vicinity,” Sgt John McLaughlin said.

Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis conducted the autopsy on Ms McLaughlin. “There was no anti-mortem damage” and death was caused by fire, said Coroner Madden.

“There was talk of spontaneous human combustion at the time. I did a little research and that probably is an urban myth, but when I did see the remains, it did come to mind.

“There was little damage to the surrounding area. I believe the clothes acted like a wick on a candle — there was the complete destruction of the body but the fire did not spread,” the coroner said.