Family of Derry and Strabane councillor call for fresh inquest into sister's death

Derry City and Strabane District councillor Raymond Barr has described the case of his sister, Denise O’Donnell (19) as “screaming corruption”.

“Nothing has changed since 1976, when we see the corruption around other cases,” he added.

Denise met her death in the early hours of the morning of Saturday 20, 1976. Her remains were found the following morning, Sunday, November 21, 1976, in eight inches of water at the edge of the River Mourne in Strabane, in County Tyrone.

The spot in the river where Denise’s body was found was directly in front of her home, about 100 yards from her front door.

Speaking to The Derry News, Cllr Barr said his family was now calling for a fresh inquest into Denise’s death following the recent decision by the controversial Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) not to examine her case.

Derry City and Strabane District councillor Raymond Barr.

“Having approached ICRIR more in hope than expectation, given the failures of previous legacy bodies, I am not too shocked by the decision but I am astounded ICRIR declared Denise’s death to be ‘not Troubles related,” said Cllr Barr.

“Its official code of conduct and values: integrity, impartiality, openness, accountability, ICRIR falls down on all of those as far as I am concerned. There was no real effort made to re-examine Denise’s case in an impartial way. Reputationally this is very damaging for ICRIR. It flies in the face of its code of conduct and its aims and objectives. It is just another talking shop.”

Denise’s family had concerns regarding aspects of the RUC investigation into her death from the very outset.

The family comprehensively documented these in April 1978 so “a situation may result which will make it more difficult for the investigation of such tragic incidents to be handled in such a frivolous manner”.

Clearly emotional, Cllr Barr recalled Denise as being “very pleasant, very quiet, very domesticated, very helpful”.

“If Denise could have done you a favour, she would have done it. She was a bit of a homebird. She really only started to socialise when she was 18. She worked in Herdman’s Mills in Sion Mills,” said Cllr Barr.

“She went out that night with two of her friends to a dance in Letterkenny. They arrived back in Strabane in the early hours of the morning. They approached the military checkpoint at the junction of Main Street and the Mourne Bridge, where her friends would leave Denise and all would continue home. Denise lived in Ballycolman and her friends lived in what was known as The Head of the Town.

“It was here they met a local man whom they all knew. Denise’s friends asked him if he would walk her ‘safely home’ and he agreed. This was between 3.30am and 4.00am. Denise never returned home.

“This man came to Denise’s home at approximately 3.45pm on the Saturday as we had been making enquiries locally regarding her disappearance. He told Denise’s mother she had refused to take the route along the Waterside, so they walked along Bridge Street and up the Ballycolman Lane where he left her at the first entrance to St Coleman’s Drive.

“He also claimed, when he was walking away from Denise, he hears her shout ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’ and when he looked round, he saw her walking towards a figure in a ‘big coat’ and he carried on towards his home.

“This story differed significantly from subsequent statements he made to the RUC, not least of which was his claim he had left Denise at Kelly’s shop - 75 yards away from the entrance to St Coleman’s Drive, the spot where he had earlier claimed to have left her. At that time, no-one apart from the person or persons involved in Denise’s death was aware what had happened to her.”

Denise’s remains were discovered by a military patrol which had been walking along Meetinghouse Street on the opposite side of the River Mourne at 11am on Sunday.

According to Cllr Barr, the positioning and location of Denise’s body in the river “created the impression it may have been concealed in the sewage outlet or in the undergrowth near the sewage outlet”.

“What remains a mystery is the location of the body from the time Denise disappeared until it was discovered. It is accepted locally, the body could not have lain at the spot where it was found all day Saturday without being discovered,” said Cllr Barr.

“During Denise’s wake, the man, who was the last person to see her alive, told us, her brothers, the RUC officers interviewing him told him they ‘would do a deal with him and get him off light if he would supply them with information about the Provisional and Official IRA’.

“Significantly, on Friday, December 10, the man came out of his mother’s house and got into an RUC landrover. We then learned he had left the country and was living in England. The late Ivan Cooper (SDLP constituency representative) later told one of my brothers that during a conversation he had with an RUC detective sergeant, in the presence of an RUC inspector, the detective sergeant told him he had personally arranged a police escort to take the man to the boat and had also arranged for the English police to meet him at the other side.”

On March 9, 1978, Denise’s mother wrote to the Chief Constable’s Office. She stressed two major questions that remained unanswered.

One was the claim by the suspect while he was in police custody on November 22, 1976, officers interviewing him had spent a greater part of the time questioning him about certain organisations and they had offered him a protection deal if he agreed to supply them with information.

And, the failure of the officers involved in the investigation to send the suspect’s clothing for forensic examination.
The reply signed by an RUC superintendent on behalf of the Chief Constable did not address either of the concerns highlighted by Denise’s mother.

“If the claim by the last person to see my sister alive that the RUC officers investigating her murder had offered him a deal in exchange for information, then we can only draw the conclusion the officers investigating the case had accepted the death as being a golden opportunity to manipulate those involved and create new sources of information on organisations in the area,” said Cllr Barr.

“If this is correct, then the question which must immediately follow is, ‘Do the police consider the investigation of political activists and organisations to be of greater importance and priority than the investigation of the death of a 19-year-old girl, and especially because her death had no political or sectarian overtones?’”

An ICRIR spokesperson told The Derry News: “The Commission recognises the ongoing impact of the loss of Denise and our sympathies are with her family. We do not routinely comment on individual cases but are always willing to meet requesting individuals to discuss their request.”