Santina's mother says she still doesn't know why toddler was murdered 

Bridget O'Donoghue says the haunting question was never answered during Karen Harrington's murder trial

Bridget O'Donoghue: 'I am very angry with that woman. She just sat there inside court as if nothing had happened.' Picture: Eddie O'Hare

The mother of murdered toddler Santina Cawley has said she still doesn’t know why Karen Harrington killed her baby.

Bridget O’Donoghue said that haunting question was never answered during the course of the murder trial.

In her first TV interview, broadcast on Virgin Media this lunchtime, Ms O’Donoghue said: “Why did she kill my baby — why, why? She didn’t give that answer.

“What did she do to her? She was only two. She was only a baby. What did she do? Nothing at all.

“I am very angry with that woman. She just sat there inside court as if nothing had happened. She was playing the game. That’s the way I see it. And she really upset me.” 

Harrington, 38, was jailed for life on Monday for murdering the toddler at an apartment on Boreenmanna Road, Cork City, on July 5, 2019.

Imposing the mandatory life sentence, Judge Michael MacGrath said: “The murder of Santina Cawley, a defenceless two-year-old child, is truly shocking. It goes against nature for parents to bury a child but to lose a child in these circumstances is beyond description.” 

During the interview, Ms O’Donoghue recalled the heartbreak of having to hold Santina’s lifeless body in Cork University Hospital the morning she died.

“I had to go into that room and they said do you want to hold her. I said do I want to what? Of course I want to hold her.

“I held her and I was trying to bring her back because she was so cold so I tried to warm her up. I didn’t want to believe she was dead.

“All I wanted was for her eyes to open up and I wanted to take her home.”