Kerry babies case - 39 years ago today

[BunnyFun]

Probably the most famous/infamous murder case in Ireland.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Babies_case
The parents who were found using DNA, were arrested and released last month after apparently answering "no comment" to all questions.
It now seems like it's being suggested that it was another family member, who died recently ,who murdered the baby rather than bring shame on the family.
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/crime/truth-about-kerry-baby-john-may-have-gone-to-the-grave-with-man-linked-to-case-42432142.html

First news story I have any memory of, even though I was so young I had no clue about any of the details. I just vividly remember the phrase 'Kerry Babies tribunal' so well from when I was about 6.

yeah and the phrase super-fecundation!

It seems convenient that the main suspect has died. The fact that the parents wouldn't answer questions would make me suspicious. We'll never know the truth. That poor baby.

Poor baby.
And poor Joanne Hayes, and what she went through. Forced to sign a confession, and shredded on the witness stand in the tribunal.
Those misogynistic attitudes haven't gone away, you know.

A file has gone to the DPP hasn't it so someone could be charged yet.

Hard to see anyone being charged with murder without evidence.

Terrible case a baby was brutally killed and discarded yet I’ve seen comments in the papers this case was 40 years ago it was different times then !?! So what !!!!! murder ( the baby didn’t injure himself) does not have a limit of time

I assume when people talk about 'different times' they're referring to the attitudes towards female sexuality and sex outside of marriage. I don't think anyone means it was more socially acceptable to murder a newborn in the early 1980s than it is now.

The thing is, infanticide was usually regarded as a tragedy not just for the baby but also for the mother - a rare but not unknown effect of PND. In this case if the murderer was a family member that doesn't apply, but it did apply to Joanne Hayes - appalling for her that she came up against ambitious Gardai keen to be redeployed to Dublin and needing to make a name.

About 8 years before that case the body of a newborn was found a couple of hundred yards from my house, in a ruined shed. The universal local reaction (even on the school but I travelled on, where everyone was repeating what they'd heard at home) was 'poor young woman, I hope she gets medical attention'. There was never any reported court case. By coincidence, my nearest neighbour back then was from Ballyheigue - she was at school with J H, her brother was was one the locals who turned up in Tralee and insisted J H be allowed home.

The police and court response was NOT typical of the times, which was what made it so scandalous and horrifying. At least the late John Harbison saw through the bullshit, lies, and deranged speculation and spoke his mind.

I don't mean to imply J H killed her own baby, but that that was what the gardai were (quite disgracefully, without evidence) accusing her of.

Exactly

Someone stabbed that wee baby 28 times.
That was a brutal vicious attack.
Someone is culpable.

I wasn't born when it happened but I had heard of the Kerry baby over the years. I had always hear the poor little baby was 'found dead' and never looked into more. I cried when I heard the baby was stabbed it probably doesn't help that I have a 9 month old.

How could you stab a baby. I don't care if it was 'different' times and an unmarried teenager having a baby would have been very shameful. Drop the baby outside the church/ garda station/ pub/ shop, anywhere!!

@pontipinemum to be fair this is a reason why the case is still open and was reviewed . This wasn't a situation where an unassisted birth went wrong. In those situations I've never heard anything but sympathy for the mother. This was a brutal murder.

A few years after the Cahirciveen baby's body was found I saw a crime scene photograph of the body of a baby that had been found - I assumed it was the Kerry one, as it was covered with deep puncture wounds. I was told no, it was another one, and that the 'stabbing' had been done by gulls. Given that the body was found on a beach, I have always wondered.

Thinking about that last night, I wondered how exactly the question as to which baby it was was worded (I didn't ask it). If the question was 'is that Joanne Hayes' baby?' then the answer 'no' does not exclude it being the baby from Cahirciveen. I saw it in a place where the science around the Kerry babies case was being studied (and the case was sub judice and the image should probably not have been left out of its file).

It (He if it was 'John', the photo didn't show the child's sex) was still a poor little dead baby, possibly murdered and certainly abandoned, but not a victim of a savage assault by a human).

The body of the baby found near my house had been partly chewed by dogs.

The autopsy done on Baby John which concluded he had been stabbed was performed by Professor John Harrison, who was the state pathologist at the time. He was by all accounts a competent pathologist who was not one to be pressured and who publicly disagreed with the views of the judge presiding over the Kerry Babies Tribunal.

The autopsy was reviewed by another pathologist in 2018 as part of the cold case reopening, and she also concluded that the baby’s had been stabbed, with four wounds piercing the baby’s heart. So unfortunately it seems to be clear that he had an unnatural end.

That's so sad - so much for my middle of the night clutching at straws. Maybe it slightly explains why the baby's parents never came forward - someone who would do that must have been terrifying.

I remember Harbison cutting through all the 'twins' nonsense in the tribunal, basically saying look at that tiny woman, how would it have been possible for her to have concealed a pregnancy with two full-term babies?