Murders awaken family’s nightmare loss
Bernadette Connolly was 10 years of age when she was abducted in 1970.
Her body was later found dismembered and thrown into a bog hole near her home in Collooney, Co Sligo.
The child was kidnapped in broad daylight as she cycled near her home in April, 1970.
“Every time somebody goes missing I think about it. It’s not too late to find Bernadette’s killer,” said her sister Ann Guilfoyle, who was 13 at the time of Bernadette’s murder.
The body of young Bernadette was not discovered in the bog until about four months after her abduction.
Despite an intensive garda investigation, the killer was never found.
“I would now call on anybody who hasn’t spoken to speak now so that we can finally put this matter to rest,” said sister Ann.
“Somebody had to see something, maybe they thought it was not connected at the time, but it’s important they talk now,” she said.
“We always kept our hope up but then it was dashed when Bernie was found.
“At that age, when you see adults so upset it robs you of something. All innocence disappeared,” she said.
“Years later when I had my own first child I really thought about what my poor parents must have gone through.
“The feelings come back, the helplessness.”
For four weeks gardaí failed to find a single clue to Bernadette’s killer.
A green van, which was reported by a number of people to have been seen in the vicinity at the time of her abduction, was found to belong to the nearby Cloonmahon monastery.
But the priests at the monastery were unable to tell gardaí who had been driving the van at the time of Bernadette’s abduction.
Garda attempts to put pressure on the priests were thwarted by the close relationship the clergy enjoyed with senior officers and by local hostility to detectives targeting the monastery.
