Not very fair on the priest though in fairness.
No one individual Is responsible for society in the 80s.
and 70's. 60's, 50's, 40's, 30's
The hold the catholic church had over people was utterly immense. So if the church said it was sinful, you were exorcised by the community in general with that community thinking they were doing "god's work" thus thinking their behavior was for the better good and "sanctioned by god".
The harm religion does, especially fervent Catholicism, is unbelievable.
The idiots who paid any attention to them were an even bigger problem.
Fcuking priests should butt out. 🤬
They're a big part of the reason why young women and babies died in the 80s.
I know it was backbar… anyway backbar…it’s not the White Strand…where baby John was found…it’s 40 miles away
I'm not familiar with the area and I didn't say it was the White Strand. I just posted the pic from the Independent.
Don't see the point here really in this investigation at this point as a conviction for the murder is near impossible with collected evidence. Unless someone turns, it's going nowhere.
At the most, the DNA evidence is only going to link the deceased as a parent, it won't prove who committed the crime. The obvious and plausible defence, in the unlikely event that this comes to trial is that a now deceased person committed the murder and these parents were helpless to stop it.
To those saying they arrested before getting DNA samples from the couple; this will merely confirm if they are the parents. Genetic genealogy was used in order to track them down in the first place, using over 400 samples from local volunteers. The couples themselves didn’t actually need to submit their samples. If, for example, a 3rd cousin was identified by a sample (based on CM amounts shared with dna of baby John), then it’s easy to work back and identify common ancestors, build trees using traditional genealogy eg census records etc, and work downwards to identify who the parents could be. This would have to be done on both parents sides. It’s a long process especially as we aren’t allowed to use public databases yet here in Ireland, but it’s absolutely the future of solving cold cases (in USA for example a dna sample from crime scene is used to identify the perpetrator).
this is how genetic genealogy works, and it’s revolutionising forensic science, but there are limitations in Ireland as to how successful it is due to no public databases (ie GEDmatch, FTDNA) being allowed to be used. Yet.
There’s close ties to the church, schools, guards etc ... so, not overly surprising
The local priest made a speech that people should feel empathy for the parents in this tough time. I wonder did he know who they were and this was a bit more than a random plea for empathy.
I fully agree and most locals down there would think similar although apparently this couple do have some supporters
Well if they are shown to be the natural parents of 'Baby John', regardless of who killed the child, they have surely lost every possible vestige of respectability. The idea of staying quiet whilst another Kerry woman & family was hounded would be despicable.
DNA is interesting because they can get that from an unsuspecting relative and link it across
They can get it from a database or a relative in a local trawl
The suspects will try to evade the trawl
Where he is standing is NOT on the White Strand ! That is either Inch or Glenbeigh…I suspect Inch.
I thought it said they were being questioned in connection with the murder… not for the murder. We don’t know what the story is, charges may yet be made, others may be charged based on what the guards have ascertained from this move. We don’t know. I don’t see any egg on Garda faces. They are doing their job.
It's hardly gossip or hearsay at this point.
Baby exhumed, DNA taken, people with matching DNA arrested.
And there's a reason decent gardai called him an utter fool
The infamous Gerry O'Carroll who in 2016 still believed Joanne Hayes had something to do with it and claimed that shoe could have had sex with 2 different men within the same hour and then given birth to twins with different sets of dna.
My guess is he also believes the earth is flat.
He has never apologised for his part in the joanne hayes investigation nor his heavy handed tactics that forced her to make a false confession.
The current gardai should have learnt that in cases like this, things need to be handled in a different manner. It not as if the death was yesterday. Better to bring someone in for questioning than to announce to the world that the arrest is for murder - and then have egg on their faces when released without charge 24 hours later. Rather embarrassing yet again for the gardai.
such A scandalous episode for 80s Ireland.
People repeating gossip and hearsay person to person is bad enough. To publicly identify a family on a public forum before charges, if any, are made is disgusting. Not to mention incredibly stupid.
This is the picture
Solicitor Padraig O'Connell pictured this weekend. Photo: Don Macmonagle
Neither of which is the photo in the Indo.
The one in the Indo specifically says "photographed this weekend"
"Oh boy, the armchair detectives are now here.
Take your stupidity and incompetence elsewhere"
Best ignored, obviously didn't understand the post.
I hadn't seen the photo, but photo 1 is clearly photoshopped.
Look at Photo 1 and Photo 3
Notice any similarities?
If the couple are responsible and don't want to admit their guilt they're hardly going to say they spent the last 39 years waiting for a knock on the door.
As was said above, they might not have allowed DNA testing, they might not have even been asked to, but someone related to one of them could have and the link between that and baby John's DNA would have narrowed the focus of the investigation.
Yes it seems ,it is a bit bizare that the Ist the couple knew of any of this was when the knock came to the front door .
Could the guards be wrong again???
Is there more twists to finding baby Johns killer yet to come to light
They were punished by being promoted, all four of them.
They got promoted, all four of them.
They didn't get off scot free. They got promoted, all four of them.
You had points that weren’t refuted 35 years ago?
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