Gardaí to examine chainsaw found on Michael Gaine’s farm

Every potential lead is being examined as gardaí seek to establish how and when Kerry farmer Michael Gaine died.

Garda at the scene in Carrig East, Kenmare, investigating the disappearance of Co Kerry farmer Michael Gaine.

A chainsaw found on Michael Gaine’s farm is to be checked to see if it was used to dismember the 56-year-old farmer who gardaí suspect was murdered.

It is not known if other tools or implements found at the site near Moll’s Gap, Kenmare, Co Kerry, are also being sent for forensic analysis.

These are also understood to include an amount of rope found in a toolshed at the back of Mr Gaine's cattle shed.

There is no indication at all at this stage that the chainsaw was actually used to dismember the farmer, but every potential lead is being examined as gardaí seek to establish how and when the farmer died.

Although they arrested a man Mr Gaine knew the same day his body was found last Sunday, he was released without charge on Monday night and without any file being sent to the Director of Prosecutions.

The man is currently living in Tralee.

As part of their inquiry into how Mr Gaine’s body was dismembered, detectives have been examining a large agitator Mr Gaine used to mix and pump slurry from his slurry tanks to a slurry spreader.

The farmer went missing on March 20.

Initially his disappearance was treated as a missing person’s case.

However, became a murder investigation after a body part was found to have jammed a slurry spreader being used by a local contractor last Friday afternoon.