This article is from page 17 of the 2006-04-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
AS family and friends of murdered Ennistymon woman, Emer O’Loughlin, gathered for her first anniversary mass on Sunday, gardaí were continuing to investigate whether her killer was in the UK.
The 23-year-old art student was discovered burnt to death, close to Tubber, on the Clare/Galway border one year ago, last Saturday.
Despite an intensive Garda investigation, no-one has been charged for the Emer’s horrific death, in the caravan she shared with her boyfriend.
As he mourned his youngest daughter, Emer’s father Johnny said he had been through hell during the past 12 months.
“Emer was a lovely young girl. The man that did this – what sort of man would he have to be, I ask myself?” he said, in a weekend interview.
The young woman had studied art in Galway and just days before she was killed, was overjoyed to learn that she had been accepted into the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin.
But Emer didn’t live to realise her lifelong dream. Instead her distraught family and friends have been left to try and come to terms with her brutal killing.
The chief suspect in the case, a Galway man in his 40s, disappeared some time after the murder.
His clothes and some personal belongings were found on the Aran Islands last April. But he hasn’t been seen since.
Detectives continue to suspect that he faked his own suicide by leaving his clothes on Dun Aengus cliff, in an effort to throw the them off the scent.
The team investigating the case have liaised with UK police, amid reports that the suspect was seen there.
A garda close to the investigation said while there was a possibility that the suspect was overseas, there was nothing to prove this.
“There is no evidence that he is dead or alive. The fact that his clothes were found close to the cliff edge suggests he fell over, or threw himself in. However there are suggestions that he is alive and well, living in the UK,” he said.