Kerry Babies: gardaí retain confidence in DNA evidence but investigators face a steep challenge

Gardaí investigating the murder of a baby in Co Kerry 40 years ago are confident that DNA tests will stand up in any criminal proceedings and prove that a couple arrested last year are the parents of the newborn child found washed up on a beach near Cahersiveen.

The DNA results form a critical part of the file and, according to informed sources, prove the couple are the parents of the infant, who was named Baby John by local undertaker Tom Cournane, who arranged his burial at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Cahersiveen. “Forensic Science Ireland carried out an analysis on the swab samples from both suspects, and the analysis found that the chances of anyone else other than the two suspects being the parents of Baby John were so infinitesimally small as to be irrefutable,” said one source.

The samples were presented at the Forensic Science Ireland laboratory at Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park when the laboratory opened at 9am on March 24th, and the results were back and available to interviewing gardaí in Kerry by 1pm that day. It is believed gardaí did not go into the specific statistical probability of anyone else other than the couple being the baby’s parents, but they did inform them that DNA tests showed they were the parents, and this was witnessed by their solicitors, who were present through the interviews.

Under questioning, Ms Hayes told gardaí she had given birth to a baby boy – she named him Shane – who was stillborn or died days later and was buried on the family farm in Abbeydorney around the same time as the discovery of the baby on the beach 80km away. Gardaí later claimed Ms Hayes had had given birth to twins after they found the remains on her baby on the farm. But tests showed the two babies had different blood types.

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