Twin brothers, aged nine, found dead in suspected murder-suicide in Cork, Ireland
|
Version 0 of 1. Two nine-year-old twin boys have been killed in a suspected-murder suicide in Ireland. The brothers were found dead in their home outside the town of Charleville, in county Cork, shortly before 5pm on Thursday. Police launched a major search for a relative, believed to be in his early 20s, whose body was later found almost 10 miles away near a river in the ruins of Buttevant Castle. Irish newspapers said the boys were named locally as Tom and Paddy O’Driscoll and were found with stab wounds, while their older half-brother, Jonathan, was hanged. Their parents are believed to have been out of the house shopping at the time had left Jonathan to pick the twins up from school. The alarm was raised when another member of the family arrived home. Police are not seeking anyone else in connection with the deaths and post-mortem examinations will be carried out on all three bodies at Cork University Hospital. If the murder-suicide is confirmed, it will be the second incident of its kind in Ireland in little over six weeks. Two brothers died in a tragedy at their home in rural Sligo in late July. Brandon Skeffington, nine, was found stabbed to death in the family home near Tubbercurry before the body of his elder brother Shane, 21, was found hanged in a shed beside the property. A study released last August examined 19 similar incidents over a 13-year period from January 2001 to the end of June last year. The report revealed that on average one murder-suicide incident happens per year and 46 people died in the period under review. Additional reporting by PA |