'It's a bittersweet day': Body of Clarissa separated from the father who killed her in West Cork

Rebecca Saunders was in shock and traumatised after her daughter's death in 2013 and always regretted allowing her daughter to be buried with her killer

Rebecca Saunders, whose husband Martin drowned their little girl Clarissa and then himself.

After years of waiting, Rebecca Saunders has finally been able to separate the body of her beloved three-year-old daughter from the child's father — the man who killed her.

Ms Saunders was at the West Cork graveyard at dawn on Friday as the fragile coffin containing the remains of Clarissa McCarthy and her father was taken from their grave.

The bereaved mother had long campaigned to have her daughter’s remains removed from the same grave as her father, Martin McCarthy, who drowned the little girl on a beach in West Cork in 2013.

Exhumation

Ms Saunders arrived at the graveyard at 4am, spending some time at the grave before scaffolding was erected and the exhumation began. 

The two bodies, intertwined for all these years, were taken by hearse to Clonakilty and were then separated.

Clarissa’s remains will be cremated so that Ms Saunders can bring her back to the US. Mr McCarthy’s remains will be re-interred in the grave they once shared.

“It’s very emotional but it’s also extremely relieving. It’s a bittersweet day,” Ms Saunders told the Irish Examiner.

"After a year of active planning and almost 10 years of hoping, it’s coming in big gushes of emotion.

You will move mountains for your child. I was very apprehensive about whether this mountain could be moved but it was. I’ve had so many people come into my life to help me with this

For Ms Saunders, the exhumation was an emotional and anxious experience. 

Mother's anxiety

Scaffolding was erected around the grave and draped in tarpaulin so that all work was conducted in private. In addition to the undertaker, a pathologist and two HSE officials were also on site.

"I was so anxious. You just have to keep telling yourself that it will all go well. It was a waiting game. There was some worry with the stability of the coffin.

The coffin is so delicate and has been in the ground for so long that you have to take your time with it but they were able to get it up. They loaded it on to the hearse and myself and a friend of mine followed the hearse to Clonakilty

Being apart from her daughter’s remains has been an added source of  grief and pain for Ms Saunders.

Campaign

She began a campaign to have her daughter’s body exhumed after speaking out about the tragedy for the first time in the Irish Examiner last year.

Just over a year later, she achieved what she had been told would be impossible — to have her daughter’s remains removed from the arms of her father, the man who killed her, and to bring her back home with her to the US.

Memorial

A plaque in memory of Clarissa is to be placed on Audley Cove, the beach below their former home in West Cork where she had loved to play and where she took her final breaths.

I took the flowers and the angels off [Clarissa’s grave]. We’re going to put those at the cove with a plaque for her there

"Even though that’s where she passed she still loved that place and I want there to be a memorial to her here,” Ms Saunders said.

Clarissa was just three when her father, then aged 50, walked into the sea with her, drowning the little girl on March 5, 2013, near their home outside Ballydehob, before dying himself.

Traumatised

Shocked and traumatised by the horror of her precious daughter’s death, Ms Saunders, then 26, allowed Clarissa to be buried in her father’s arms just days after the killing.

However, she regretted that decision ever since and has finally won her battle to exhume the bodies. She will now be able to bring Clarissa back home with her to the US.