Toddler’s fundraising funds were break-in target: family

The family of a two-year-old girl who are fundraising for life-changing surgery for her have been the victims of two attempted break-ins.

They have been forced to speak out and stress that none of the money raised is in their Dundalk, Co Louth, home and they do not have access to the funds.

Last week, the family of Zoe Murphy said that the response to their appeal to raise €100,000 for her spinal operation had been “unbelievable”. Her mother Lynda and father Eamon confirmed that they had reached the halfway mark and were blown over by the support in their hometown.

“The response has been unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable,” Lynda said.

Without the procedure, which will be carried out in America, they have been told that Zoe will struggle to walk as she was born with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy.

It has left her with severe muscle pain and in recent months, her parents Eamon and Lynda have used cannabis oil to relieve her muscle spasms. The procedure is called selective dorsal rhizotomy and it will be performed at St Louis Children’s Hospital, Missouri, by paediatric neurosurgeon TS Park.

Eamon says they now feel paranoid. “We can’t say for definite but it’s very coincidental that twice in 10 days, we have two guys attempting to get in. Our estate is very quiet and never any word of break-ins. We have lived here for six years and have never heard of any trouble.”

Last week, he left to hand out buckets for a collection for Zoe and she was at home with Lynda. Fifteen minutes later, two men attempted to get in.

“Lynda was in the kitchen and two guys were getting in our sliding doors from the back garden. Lynda ran, grabbed Zoe and ran out the front door and the guys, we are assuming, hopped a wall.

“With all the good publicity we were getting, we never once thought that we would be opening ourselves up to bad attention.”

As a result they put a post on Facebook to stress they have no access to any of Zoe’s funds and would “never keep money in the house”.

“It’s horrible it has turned something that was going so well into something that we feel we have to watch what we post about or even announce the funds we have raised, which is very sad because we now feel very paranoid about things we should be celebrating.”