A small but heart-felt ceremony took place yesterday in Donore in memory of Bettina Poeschel, a 28-year-old German woman who was murdered twenty years ago just outside the village.
The man who organised the ceremony, former councillor and mayor of Drogheda Frank Godfrey, who lives just yards from the scene of the murder, said that Bettina would never be forgotten by the tight-knit community in Donore.
The ceremony included songs and poetry recited by local people including Rory Mohan and Dick Murphy. Wreaths were laid by Frank Godfrey and Councillor Paddy Meade.
Father Colm O’Mahony, an Augustinian friar based in Drogheda, also planted a tree of remembrance for Bettina.
Bettina was brutally raped and murdered by 42-year-old Michael Murphy, of Rathmullen Park on Tuesday, September 25th, 2001.
She had been on a six-day visit to Ireland with a friend and was due to return to Munich the day after she disappeared. Her friend, Holger Sirtl, raised the alarm when she failed to return to Dublin in time for her flight back to Germany.
She was last seen walking along the Donore Road towards Newgrange shortly after 11.30 a.m. Murphy was working on the nearby M1 motorway construction site at Donore.
Following an extensive Garda investigation and widespread searches Bettina’s badly decomposed and semi naked body was found by local Gardaí lying face down in dense undergrowth.
That Garda investigation was recalled yesterday by Frank Godfrey who commended An Garda SIochana for their good work. He especially commended Chief Superintendent Michael Finnegan and Inspector Gerry O’Brien who were in control of the investigation and Garda Patrick Kelly who made the gruesome find.
According to media reports of the court proceedings, Murphy showed no emotion and continued chewing gum as the guilty verdict was read out. He was given a mandatory life sentence by Mr Justice Ó Caoimh.
As yesterday’s ceremony concluded Frank Godfrey proposed that a bench should be installed at the memorial so that passers by could sit and contemplate the life of a young woman snuffed out so cruelly.
