Strabane schoolboy killed 30 years ago today

Kate Brown has kept her son’s blue stripey bed linen for the past 30 years, laundered and folded away in a wardrobe never to be used again. A St Mary’s Primary School uniform from his final days as a P7 pupil is mounted on the wall inside a large glass frame on the upstairs hallway of her home. There are also numerous family photographs displayed throughout the house.

Three decades may seem like a lifetime to some people, but it’s a mere blink for Kate who relives the ordeal of losing her blue-eyed boy every day.

Friday marks the 30th anniversary of the brutal killing of her son, Kieran Hegarty in the town on January 19 1994. Self-confessed child killer Brian Doherty was convicted of manslaughter and kidnapping 11-year-old Kieran at his trial in May 1995.

The trial judge at Antrim Crown Court, Mr Justice Higgins said Doherty was a “menace to society”. He said, “The killing of this boy was a monstrous offence committed with unpardonable cruelty. A more cruel and macabre killing is difficult to imagine.”

This week the still-grieving Kate is trying to focus primarily on keeping Kieran’s memory alive. He was the second youngest of four children and would be 42 this year if he had lived to celebrate his birthday on November 17.

Kate has a special celebration organised on Saturday evening to commemorate Kieran’s life. The schoolboy’s anniversary will be remembered at 7pm Mass in St Mary’s Church Melmount – across the road from the local primary school he attended – followed by a small private function in the nearby Fir Trees Hotel.

Kate has also been keeping herself busy in the lead-up to the milestone 30th anniversary, delivering personalised invites to family and close friends with a new memoriam card also dedicated to Kieran who she misses as much as ever three decades on.

“I can’t believe it’s 30 years. There have been a lot of changes in my life, some good and some bad, and he is talked about quite often,” Kate said. “I am particularly sad this time because it is the big one, 30 years. I just wonder what he would be up to. Would he be married, have kids, what his job would be?”

While there are some family matters that Kate is unable to discuss publicly, she admits she has had to try to stay strong “for the rest of the family and grandkids.”

Kate no longer lives in the original family home at Gormley Crescent on the Carlton Drive estate where her son’s teenage killer was a neighbour.

Kate recalled, “Every time I close my eyes I still remember everything about that day”. Kieran disappeared while running an errand for his mum and was viciously intercepted by Doherty who had discharged himself from a psychiatric unit in Omagh against medical advice just days earlier.

In a macabre twist to an already harrowing case, Doherty infamously moved the schoolboy’s body at the scene after it was initially found during searches in a wooded area off the Orchard Road. Police had to return to Kieran’s home during the night to relay the shocking development to his mother while a manhunt was underway to apprehend the killer.

Kate recalled how she had kept the fire topped up with extra coal that bitterly cold January night, hoping that Kieran would be found safe and well.

Kate described Kieran as a “bubbly wee fella, always into football – a Manchester Utd fanatic.” Asked what she misses most about him his mum said, “the craziness”. She cited examples like the time “he went down the bottom of the site and came back with his ear pierced”. And, getting his head shaved, leaving just a small flick at the front. He had convinced a female neighbour who styled it for him that he had his mother’s permission, they discovered afterwards.

Kate recounted some other poignant memories that she hasn’t shared publicly until now about her mischievous and soft-hearted 11-year-old.

“He had his heart set on this girl, he had bought her a teddy bear and took it to the Melmount Centre kids disco in a shoe box. She wasn’t there because she was grounded and he came back all downhearted. The day of his funeral, my daughter gave her the teddy bear and she still has it to this day.”

Kate continued: “I still have his duvet cover, pillow slip and sheet which I keep in a wardrobe upstairs and is not touched by anyone else. When I was getting his room prepared for the funeral I moved the bed out and in behind were all biscuit wrappers.

“I had a tin cigar box under the Christmas tree which went missing.

“It was after Kieran died a neighbour told me him and his brother were hanging out the bathroom window smoking, the rest [of the cigars] were found in the attic.”

Kieran also enjoyed a bit of harmless fun while helping a “spud man from Derry” on his rounds. The Strabane schoolboy would add a few extra eggs to the half dozen or dozen requested by customers. “At the wake the man was saying it took him ages to figure out where all the eggs went, Kieran was giving so many away,” his mum laughed.

In a distressing parallel that no-one could have envisaged happening so close to home, Kate recalled that in the months prior to his death Kieran had been following the Jamie Bulger case, the toddler who was abducted from a shopping centre and murdered by two older boys in Liverpool in 1993. “He actually had written about it in his story book but the book was lost.”

In the aftermath of her son’s tragic murder, Kate and her family made emotional visits to the spot where his body was found in a shallow grave on the outskirts of the town.

She explained, “He was fostered out for a while in Derry and his foster family from Culmore put up a temporary cross.”

His final resting place is in Melmount cemetery where his grave is adorned with flowers and mementoes placed by his loved ones.

Thanking people for their support throughout the past 30 years, Kate said that while she no longer lives there, “my neighbours in Carlton Drive were very good.”

Kate explained that she likes to keep herself busy. She enjoys “a few days out” amid her caring responsibilities and is looking forward to better weather for some holiday outings in the coming months.

“I have to keep going because if I lie down nobody else is going to take over. Kieran is never far from my thoughts…”

Now more than ever on the 30th anniversary, Kate wants people to remember her smiling son forever young, loved always and never forgotten.