Missing Kerry farmer, Mike Gaine from Kenmare

[SocksPants]

https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0329/1504660-michael-gaine/

Anyone following this story.?
It's been over a week now since he went missing. Hard to see it having a happy ending.

People are always going to speculate when there’s a mystery. It’s human nature.

I found the images of the Gardai forming a guard of honour as the hearse passed through the farm yard very moving. You don’t see that very often in a crime case. I hope Mike is at peace now.

@halfpasteleven I did too & his friend touching the hearse as it passed, this is such a sad ending, I know all murders are, god knows we've enough high profile cases over here but this one has struck a cord, apparently Mike Gaine was known a "gentle teddy bear" by the community & he looks every inch of it

The person who was being questioned is now free to travel internationally, according to the Irish Times earlier.

The Gardai know who murdered him, but obviously have no evidence. The interrogation didn't work to get him to confess either. Although I read somewhere that the man was a veteran of US armed forces so would have been trained in such matters I'd imagine.

One gruesome theory I read as to why there was no evidence is that the body was dismembered in a stream/river so that the blood was washed away. OMG what a horrible way to go. Sorry for the speculation, but where there's a void in information it is usually filled by such theories.

May that poor man rest in peace now. At least his family know where he is. Cold comfort indeed.

Wait what? So it was the American? I firmly believe no one will be prosecuted for this, it's Sophie Toscan Du Plantier all over again, another black mark in Irelands murder investigations

@zenas unfortunately that makes sense, I'm not from an agri background so slurry pits & agitators are unfamiliar territory but a few on Twitter were saying similar to that theory..

One thing I can't figure out is how the killer moved the body to dispose of it (sorry about that description). But I suppose there was a way somehow.

I suppose it's a farm with at least a quad or small tractors for day to day movement between fields, it's a pretty big farm by all accounts

I think @JaneJeffer upthread used the word "gruesome" & that's so apt isn't it?

The American living on Mikes land is in his 60s. The man arrested was in his 50s so perhaps it’s not the same person…

I'm aware, it's mostly false snippets of gossip

Are they certain it wasn't an accident? I'm imagining - slurry agitator left running, MG spotted a problem, got caught up and dragged in. I remember a case about 40 years ago where that happened to a relative of someone I knew in college. They found a few bits of his skull. I know that was a long time ago and that sort of 'run off a tractor engine' set-up should no longer exist, but the kinds of agricultural accidents that shouldn't happen do happen all too often.

I haven’t read anything about this case but if it’s a farm there are all sorts of machinery around. I’ve seen dead cows moved around by tractors.

https://www.corkbeo.ie/news/local-news/im-being-framed-gangsters-american-31712985?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Mr Kelley says he is being framed by gangsters. Which begs the question : why would gangsters want to kill Mike Gaines?

I overhead on the radio that they basically chopped up this body into tiny pieces - so they would fit through small gaps. So definitely not an accident. Sorry to be so horrific: the poor man and his family.

He’s a “self described” asylum seeker from Maine.

It’s all very strange.

The spaces in the slats have to be narrow enough so a young animals hooves won't get trapped so the gap is normally between an inch and an inch and a half.
Doesn't bear thinking about.

You're right about the spaces in the slats, but slurry tanks have a "hatch" outside the shed to put the agitator in ( to break everything up and make it more liquid) and the slurry spreading machine hose. It would be about a meter square or more.

Sorry just read the article where the guards think he was chopped up to go through the slats. That's horrific. My point was there's more than one way into a slurry tank

In the Cork case I remember (1980s I think) the guy had invented an agitator that would 'chop' and break up semi solidified slurry in a pit. He fell into it, possibly when a bit of his clothing was caught in the drive shaft, and got - chopped and broken up.

If anyone fell into a slurry tank while a heavy duty agitator was running they are in danger of the same thing. Safety systems are meant to prevent that nowadays, but people in a hurry bypass safety systems.

I mean I don’t think they would claim this unless they knew for certain. Surely it is possible to tell the difference between an accident and purposely done. From the types of ect…

they seemed fairly sure he was murdered early on. I hope they catch whoever did it, his wife and family must be absolutely devastated.