Mother allowed to exhumed daughter’s remains

After a nine year wait, an American woman has finally been granted permission to exhume the remains of her daughter in Ireland to buried in the US.

Rebecca Saunders lost her three year old daughter Clarissa when her Irish husband Martin McCarthy took his and Clarissa’s life at Audley Cove in West Cork on 5 March, 2013.

In a suicide note left for Rebecca, Mr McCarthy wrote: “If you can take Clarissa to America I can take Clarissa to Heaven.”

Upon being granted permission to bring her daughter home, Ms Saunders took to Twitter to thank everyone who helped her.

“Today I was granted the license to exhume Clarissa! After nine years I will be able to correct my awful mistake! Can’t wait to be able to take Rissa home! This has really been a long time coming. It’s a day for celebration!

“A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has helped to shape this into reality. You’ve no idea what this means to me and my family.”

Clarissa was originally buried in a single coffin with her father at a graveyard adjacent to St Mary's Church in Schull.

Ms Saunders, who now lives in Texas, established a GoFundMe page to raise enough funds for legal counsel for the application for her daughter to be exhumed. The page reached its €50,000 target in April of last year.

On the page, Ms Saunders wrote: “Soon I will be able to take my baby home. I will keep everybody updated when that happy day comes. It is definitely in the near future!”

The GoFundMe campaign has now reached over €55,000 and Ms Saunders says all funds not used in the process to exhume Clarissa will be donated to Edel House in Cork, which supports victims of domestic violence and Cork University Maternity Hospital Neonatal Unit.