TORN, mud-strewn clothes, “bloodied” shoes and 93 different injuries… this was how Kelly Lynch’s body was discovered lying in a canal.
The 23-year-old had been enjoying a night out with friends at a local pub on a Friday night before she left – never to be seen alive again. Now 18 months on, mum Julianne Lynch is still fighting to find out what really happened to her daughter.
Kelly Lynch was just 23 when she was found dead in the Ulster Canal in the Republic of Ireland[/caption]
Kelly, from Co Armagh in Northern Ireland, was the second of six children, and had celebrated her sister’s 12th birthday just days before going missing in March last year.
Julianne tells Fabulous: “Kelly has such a soft voice, she said: ‘See you soon, mummy’, and kissed me.
“I would never believe that her walking out the door would be the last time I’d see her alive. And now in hindsight, I wish I could just reach back in time and hold on to her and tell her not to go.”
Julianne’s last call with her eldest daughter was at 6pm on Friday 15 March, while Kelly was with friends and her partner in a pub in Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland, where her boyfriend lived.
“I’d gone to bed that night with a false sense of security,” she says.
The next morning, Julieanne and her family woke to several missed calls from Kelly, the last at 4am where she had left a voicemail 23 seconds long.
Julieanne has not released the voicemail to the public but told the Limerick Reader that you can clearly hear ‘she’s very hurt, she’s been injured and she can’t breathe and she’s doing a lot of crying.’
Julieanne tried to contact her daughter, but never got a reply. Anxious, she also messaged Kelly’s boyfriend on Facebook, but didn’t realise she had contacted his old account, meaning he never saw her message.
By Sunday morning, which was St Patrick’s Day, Julianne knew something was wrong. Then, at around lunchtime, her son received a call asking for Kelly’s next of kin.
“I think I knew deep down, once the words next of kin were mentioned, that it wasn’t going to be good news,” she says.
In a call with the Irish police force, the Garda, Kelly’s mum was told the news no parent ever wants to hear.
“I asked, Is Kelly OK?” she recalls. “I kind of was hoping that maybe she had been drunk and disorderly and put in a cell. You know, wishful thinking.
“But he delivered the news, ‘I’m sorry to do this over the phone, but your daughter Kelly Marie Lynch is deceased.’ And my life literally changed in a split second.”
Her daughter had been missing for 30 hours before her body was found.
In the hours that followed, Julieanne says that because of the Irish borders, nobody spoke to her face-to-face about her loss.
She went to Navan the next day to confirm her identity.
“We had been warned about the significant damage to the side of her face,” she explains.
“We were taken into a small room with a hospital trolley, and beneath that, with feet closest to us, was Kelly. Beneath a purple fleece blanket.
“It just felt so wrong and surreal that I was there witnessing my child’s dead body and confirming it’s her. And it was also torture knowing that the autopsy still hadn’t been completed.
“Beneath that blanket, my daughter was lying open, not even whole.
“Kelly came out of my womb whole and complete. But as I was identifying her remains, she wasn’t intact.”
Kelly was exactly 23 and six months old when she passed away on March 16 – her body wasn’t discovered when her boyfriend and his cousin found her in the Ulster Canal.
Gardia police treated the death as non suspicious, meaning a full investigation was not done early on.
The bridge where police say Kelly fell[/caption]
What really happened to Kelly?
Since the death of her daughter, Julianne has lodged 13 complaints with the Fiosrú – the Office of the Police Ombudsman – for alleged mishandling of Kelly’s investigation, as she and her partner Sean believe it has not been handled seriously.
For now, Julianne must wait for answers as the Office of the Police Ombudsman conducts a review of the original investigation.
The review is not a re-investigation but is to establish whether there are any additional lines of enquiry that could have been missed.
They also state the review could take up to eight years to complete. In the meantime, Julianne has started a GoFundMe to pay for legal fees as she fights to get answers for her daughter.
She is also working with Katie’s Trust to help raise an unbiased review on the case in hopes of it being re-investigated.
But mum Julianne has unanswered questions in relation to her daughter’s tragic death.
Kelly was celebrating her little sister’s birthday when she last saw her family[/caption]
THE KATIE’S TRUST
Julieanne is also seeking the help of The Katie’s Trust to find answers in her daughter’s case.
The charity was founded by retired Detective Sergeant James Brannigan, a former senior investigator with the Police Service of Northern Ireland who helped bring justice to Katie Simpson and her family.
Detective Brannigan was imperative in proving Katie did not take her own life but was in fact murdered by her sister’s husband Jonathan Creswell.
Now he has set up the charity that will seek independent accountability for families who have questions around tragic deaths, and aims to provide training and raise awareness around investigative standards, victim support, and justice.
The charity also plans to use specialist officers with expertise tailored to each case in an effort to bring peace of mind and clarity to families.
Despite only being set up in July, more than 20 families have reached out for help, including the Lynchs.
To help fund The Katie’s Trust work you can visit their GoFundMe.
Her family have raised several questions, including why her clothes were handed back to them just eight days after her death[/caption]
Her clothes had rips which her mum claims aren’t consistent with a fall[/caption]
Kelly’s coat she wore on the night of her death also features large rips[/caption]
Crime scene not sealed
Juliannne says normal procedures were not followed, including keeping a crime scene cordoned off.
Kelly was found between 8.30 and 9am on Sunday, but the road wasn’t cordoned off until that evening.
Julianne’s sister drove to see the location after hearing the news at around 2pm.
She found that the road and canal had police present, who were patrolling the St Patrick’s Day parade.
When she informed them her niece had been found there earlier that day and asked why it wasn’t cordoned off, she claims police told her to ‘move on.’
Later that evening, the site was cordoned off, but it raises the question as to why it wasn’t done earlier.
Cause of death questioned
Julianne claims she was first told that her daughter had died from a head injury, consistent with a fall, when they went to view her body.
Later, she says she was told drowning was the cause of death.
The state pathologist concluded that drowning was the cause of Kelly’s death, but an independent pathologist doesn’t believe drowning to be the single cause.
Because of the current inquest, Julieanne is unable to go into more detail on this.
Where to seek grief support
Need professional help with grief?
- Child Bereavement UK Childbereavementuk.org
- Cruse Bereavement Cruse.org.uk
- Relate Relate.org.uk
- The Good Grief Trust Thegoodgrieftrust.org
- You can also always speak to your GP if you’re struggling.
You’re Not Alone
Check out these books, podcasts and apps that all expertly navigate grief…
- Griefcast: Cariad Lloyd interviews comedians on this award-winning podcast.
- The Madness Of Grief by Rev Richard Coles (£9.99, W&N): The Strictly fave writes movingly on losing his husband David to alcoholism.
- Terrible, Thanks For Asking: Podcast host Nora McInerny encourages non-celebs to share how they’re really feeling.
- Good Mourning by Sally Douglas and Imogen Carn (£14.99, Murdoch Books): A guide for people who’ve suffered sudden loss, like the authors who both lost their mums.
- Grief Works: Download this for daily meditations and expert tips.
- How To Grieve Like A Champ by Lianna Champ (£3.99, Red Door Press): A book for improving your relationship with death.
Clues on clothes
The mum also says that just eight days after her daughter’s death, she was handed Kelly’s belongings, including the clothes she was wearing that night, in a filing box you’d find in an office.
Once the family had the items home, they found small red marks on her shoes, which they assumed was blood from either Kelly or someone else, which they flagged to detectives.
She explains: “We started compiling questions after that meeting on March 25. And especially after we’d seen Kelly’s clothing, it did not add up to ‘just a fall’.
The family claim they were also told by police to test the red marks for themselves.
Speaking to the BBC, Sean said: “When I put it to them at the meeting, he said: ‘What I said was sure you’re entitled to get it tested yourself.’”
“Adding the word ‘entitled’ doesn’t make it any less hurtful.”
A senior Garda officer apologised to the Lynch family for the comment.
The state of Kelly’s clothing also raised suspicion for Julieanne, images show that her coat, jeans and belt had been ripped, her socks were covered in mud, while her trainers looked almost pristine minus some red stains which her family suggest could be blood.
She met with the Garda Commissioner in October 2024, and she said he was shocked to hear Kelly’s clothes were handed back so soon and has since had them retested.
While Julieanne is unable to talk about the results, she says they could have taken the investigation down a different route.
Final CCTV
The last CCTV to capture Kelly was at The National School, where she is said to have been with a group of around six other people.
The police first said they had CCTV proof that Kelly walked off on her own, but it was later retracted and amended to say witnesses claimed she walked off.
CCTV on the bridge had not been activated, while private houses near the area were not canvassed for information or CCTV until it was too late, and footage had already been wiped.
Kelly’s phone has also never been searched or triangulated to see her last whereabouts or who she was last in contact with.
Police say there was no need as her death was not criminal or suspicious.
Catalogue of injuries
Julianne also claims her daughter had 93 injuries to her body, which she believes is not consistent with a fall.
She says: “I wouldn’t imagine somebody falling to get the injuries like Kelly had to be so filthy back and front and from head to toe.
“It wasn’t a high body of water; there were literally inches, if that, in the canal. It was more silt and mud, with fresh rainwater, not enough for her to be submerged.”
Kelly was found 30 hours after her death in the canal[/caption]
For Julianne and her family, life has been at a standstill ever since Kelly’s passing, she says: “I literally cannot sleep at night and if I do sleep, it’s just nightmares about Kelly, her last moments.”
“Now when I listen to the voicemail, I know that Kelly was struggling to survive, and she had been severely injured at that stage.
“But she was still walking. So it lets me know that something had happened beforehand. There’s definitely something amiss.”
Julaianne adds that a statement released by the police says that they are in regular contact, but claims she has not been contacted for three months.
She adds: “We have everything documented, every communication ever sent to us. And it’s been over three months since we had communication from Monaghan and the Garda themselves.
“And that was simply just to inquire about a password. And then the peer review, they’re just not really communicating with us now at all.
“They were very good in the beginning, but something seems to have changed.”
“We’re the ones left behind trying to piece everything together, and we’ve depended on the authorities and the authorities have let Kelly down as well as us,” she adds.
“Kelly is the most important person in all of this. She may be dead, but she is still the most important person.”
We reached out to the Garda Síochána, who sent the following statement: “Garda Commissioner Drew Harris and Chief Superintendent Alan McGovern, Louth-Cavan-Monaghan Division, met with the family of Ms Kelly Lynch on 21st October 2024, and listened carefully to their concerns.
“Following this meeting, Commissioner Harris directed that a Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) from a Division external to the Louth-Cavan-Monaghan Division conduct a peer review of the investigation into the death of Ms Lynch.
“An Garda Síochána is currently conducting that peer review of the original Garda investigation. The SIO is keeping the family up to date with the progress of the review. An Garda Síochána is also assisting the Coroner’s Inquest and fully co-operating with the Fiosrú investigation. These processes are ongoing.
“An Garda Síochána appeals to anyone with information on the death of Ms Lynch to contact Gardaí.
“For guidance: a peer review is not a re-opening of the case. It is an examination of the original investigation to identify if there any potential additional lines of enquiry.”
We have also reached out to Fiosrú the Office of the Police Ombudsman who say the Fiosrú investigation is ongoing and have no further update at this time.
For now, Kelly’s family is relying on independent experts to answer questions about her death[/caption]
