THE LITTLE girl at the centre of Ireland's longest missing child hunt could be lying in a shallow grave yards from where she went missing. The grave was identified by three searchers looking for sixyear- old Mary Boyle just days after she disappeared in 1977.
However, despite the fact it was marked and reported to gardai working on the case, it was never checked out, a Sunday World investigation reveals today. We can also disclose how the site is set to be dug up in a new review that could lead to the first major breakthrough in the hunt for the little girl.
Just weeks ago, officers reviewing the 36-year-old mystery visited a bowlshaped area of land at Cashelard, in Donegal, near where Mary was last seen by her uncle Gerry Gallagher, as she followed him from his family farm to a neighbour's property.
Forensic
They have also interviewed and taken lengthy statements from the surviving searchers who found the freshlydug earth - one of whom describes today how the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end when he saw it. Gardai under Assistant Commissioner Kieran Kenny have also taken evidence that is known to have been on the land at the time Mary vanished and sent it for forensic analysis.
A Sunday World Cold Case team this week investigates the mystery of Mary's disappearance on the lonely hillside where the secrets behind her death still lie.
We can reveal how:
- a shallow grave was reported to Gardai THREE times across three decades but has yet to be excavated;
- senior New York Police Department (NYPD) officers have offered their services to the hunt for Mary and believe they have identified a suspect in her disappearance;
- a review team hope that forensics may still help them solve the case despite the passage of time;
- a cross erected in memory of the little girl has been mysteriously removed, and;
- how former chief suspect, child killer Robert Black, couldn't have been involved, according to experts.
Today, Mary's twin sister Ann also issues a desperate plea to the Gardai to excavate the grave discovered by witnesses on the hillside where her sister disappeared 36 years ago. The site, a little over a hundred metres from the last place Mary was last seen alive, was identified by three witnesses just two days after she went missing, but has never been searched or undergone any forensic analysis.
"They need to search it to see if she is there or was there. I hope they will because if someone has come forward and said that they thought that this was a grave, then it's the only clue we would have in all this time," an emotional Ann said.
Mary and Ann were visiting their grandparents' home in Cashelard on St Patrick's weekend in 1977 when the unthinkable happened. After dinner, Mary set out to follow her uncle Gerry across the boggy hillside, but never came back. Her disappearance is the longest missing child investigation in the history of the State, but today, in the first of our two-part Cold Case review, we untangle the veil of secrecy that has hung over the files for decades.
The Sunday World understands that in the aftermath of Mary's disappearance, hundreds of local farmers came to offer their help searching for her. During day two, a line of volunteers stretched from the Gallagher cottage to the top of the mountain and began to walk across it. Three searchers, including farmer John Gallagher (no relation), say they came across what looked like a freshlydug grave measuring about four feet by two feet.
One of the trio, who has since died, later told an officer involved in the original investigation that he pulled at some of the sod and saw what looked like brown hair.
John Gallagher told our team last week: "The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. There is no doubt but it was a grave."
He said he marked the site with a stick and made his way to a mobile unit which was being used as the Garda's headquarters during the searches. He informed an officer of his find. The Sunday World understands that the grave was never mentioned again and weeks later, when Gallagher enquired, he was informed that it had been ruled out.
Weeks after her disappearance, two graves were dug in lands near the family farm. They were routinely excavated to make sure they held animal remains and not the child, but incredibly, the one nearest the place where she was last seen was left untouched.
In 1995, when Gardai began to reinvestigate the unsolved case, the man who claims to have seen the hair went with an officer to point out where he had stumbled upon the shallow grave. Again, nothing was done.
In the past few weeks, a team under Assistant Commissioner Kieran Kenny have again had the area identified to them and taken fresh statements in relation to it. It is unthinkable that it will not be searched at this point by officers reviewing the case. We can also reveal that two senior NYPD homicide detectives are carrying out enquiries in the area on behalf of the family and believe they have identified a new suspect.
Forensics could still be the key to the case. An item has recently been removed by Gardai and has been sent for forensic testing. A scientist working with the Sunday World on the case, the man who recently identified the remains of King Richard III under a car park in England after 500 years, has said he believes the truth about what happened to Mary is likely to be preserved if her remains can be found.
Leading forensic pathologist Stuart Hamilton says the boggy and acidic soil of Cashelard would provide the perfect preservation for organic tissue and could have kept safe detailed clues as to how she met her end. Country singer Margo O'Donnell, a cousin of Mary, who demanded that officers re-open the case two years ago, says she is stunned that a cross she erected to the little girl at the top of the mountain, near an area known as the Blind Lough, has been removed.
"Why anyone would have removed it is just baffling. It must have been an uncomfortable reminder to someone that their past may be about to catch up with them," she said.
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