Grandmother desperate to find missing Saoirse’s body
A Belfast woman says she is desperately hoping for answers after her granddaughter’s missing person enquiry became a murder investigation.
It was the tragic loss of a daughter that led Vera Smyth to take in her granddaughter Saoirse and raise her as her own from the age of just four.
But, 24 years later, her granddaughter is gone too.
And Vera has been left without a body to bury and not knowing exactly what happened to the vulnerable young woman she loved dearly.
“I put on a front as if nothing’s going on, but I feel it inside – it gets to me inside,” the 72-year-old said.
“I talk about her all the time. Sometimes we think she’s going to walk through the door, but she hasn’t ... It’s like a dead weight inside that won’t go away.”
Saoirse, 28, was last seen in Belfast on 11 April 2017.
She had moved to Omeath in Co Louth and is believed to have returned there later that day, but was officially reported missing in December 2017.
The PSNI and gardaí had been investigating her disappearance, but say information obtained by officers – along with Saoirse’s failure to respond to pleas from her family on social media – leads them to believe she has been murdered.
Saoirse had been battling drug addiction and her family now fears that may have, in some way, cost the young woman her life.
Despite the chaotic life she lived, she kept in contact with family – until that stopped.
Her bank account going left untouched rang another alarm bell.
PSNI Detective Chief Inspector Geoff Boyce told UTV that proof of life enquiries in particular led to the missing person investigation being turned into a murder enquiry.
“To survive you need money, you travel … All of those inquiries that we have conducted, in conjunction with information from the family and some information that’s been received in confidence, we believe that Saoirse’s been murdered sadly,” he said.
Vera was unable to take that it when she was first told and still finds it hard to accept.
“Saoirse was just one of these children you couldn’t help but love … She wasn’t a bad child. Just like any other child growing up,” she said.
But Saoirse was also, according to her family, easily led and got “a wee bit out of control” as she got older.
By 16, she was living in a hostel and her drug addiction would take hold in later years.
Regardless, her grandmother insists Saoirse did not deserve to lose her life over her mistakes.
“No one deserves this,” she said, adding that those responsible for her murder simply do not care.
“She was only a girl, she was 28 - she didn’t deserve that life, didn’t deserve that death.
“They’ve taken away my granddaughter, they’ve taken a part of my life.”
For closure, and to give Saoirse a fitting burial, Vera now just wants to know where her body is.
“Someone out there knows something …” she said.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s big or small, come forward. Come forward to give us peace of mind, because she doesn’t deserve the death she has.”
Two people, a 40-year-old man and a 48-year-old woman, have already been questioned by detectives and released on bail.
Anyone with information is asked to contact detectives on 101, or +44 28 90 650 222 from RoI.