A number of people close to the missing schoolboy Kyran Durnin, who gardaí believe was murdered, stopped sharing photographs of him, and referring to him publicly, around the same period in the second half of 2022, investigators believe.
While two suspects were arrested last month and several searches have been carried out at properties in Co Louth, Kyran’s remains have not be found. The last independent confirmed sighting of him was in June 2022, when he was six years old and attending national school in Dundalk, Co Louth.
Gardaí believe he died in the weeks or months after the last confirmed sighting and that his body was concealed to cover up his death. However, the detail of where, how or when he died has not been determined.
Detectives have been trawling online and telephone-based activity of a number of persons of interest in the case. While the child features in messages and posts that were shared, some of them publicly, for years, that content about him then appears to cease in the summer of 2022.
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Gardaí have also examined other activity, including fast food purchases, which have added to their suspicions Kyran died in the summer of 2022. There is also no evidence of gifts on milestone celebrations, including at Christmas, having been purchased for him.
There was a very high volume, almost daily, pattern of food deliveries to addresses of properties of interest in the case. That pattern of food orders and deliveries was well established by the period to June 2022, when the evidence proving Kyran was alive appears to expire.
After that time, gardaí believe, the pattern of meals being ordered changed in a manner that suggests the group being fed had reduced by one person.
Garda sources said the apparent changes in the ordering of food might be explained if one child was being cared for elsewhere or a family unit became dispersed. But they believe the absence of photographs of Kyran, and references to him, in messages and posts is more specific and more revealing.
The same sources stressed the strands of information are not proof of a crime, and still do not answer the key questions in the case around how Kyran died and where his remains are.
However, when reviewed together the strands of information have strengthened the Garda’s view that Kyran died around the summer of 2022. Gardaí were always highly suspicious of the theory he was alive as recently as August last year, as a missing person’s report made to gardaí in Co Louth at the time claimed.
One of two people arrested in December, Anthony Maguire (36), was found dead at his home in Drogheda, Co Louth, the day after he was released without charge. Though a note was discovered, and is believed to have been written by Maguire, it made no reference to Kyran’s death or related matters.
While Maguire was not Kyran’s father, and was not related to him, he had access to the boy around the time gardaí believe he died, when he was six years of age.
A woman arrested in the same week in December, also on suspicion of Kyran’s murder, claimed during Garda interviews that Maguire was caring for the boy in 2022 when he was last seen alive.
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