Family has an agonising wait for return of Danielle McLaughlin's body
The body of the 28-year-old was flown into Dublin Airport yesterday morning after a three-day journey from Goa.
Danielle’s family are now waiting to see if they can have a second autopsy carried out on the body of the young Buncrana woman.
It may be Monday by the time that takes place, as the coroner’s office does not carry out autopsies at weekends.
An autopsy has already been carried out on Danielle in India. However, Danielle’s family have insisted on a second one in Ireland.
A family source said they were not happy with events in India and how Danielle’s situation had been handled.
It has also now been revealed that further medical procedures are to be undertaken on Danielle in Belfast before she is returned to her home on the Inishowen Peninsula, meaning it may now be Tuesday before the remains of Danielle are returned to her mother Andrea and her four younger sisters.
Local Sinn Féin Senator Pádraig Mac Lochlainn said this is a very difficult time for the family but they are just pleased that Danielle’s remains are back on Irish soil.
“We are grateful that Danielle is back on Irish soil, and now it is a matter of getting her home to her family as quickly as we can,” he said.
Danielle’s mother, Andrea Brannigan, said she will not fully accept her daughter is dead until she holds her hand. Speaking from her home in Buncrana, Co Donegal, Ms Brannigan said she just knew that her eldest daughter had died when her friend Louise McMenamin arrived at her home in Marian Park on Tuesday week last.
“I knew as soon as I saw her. As soon as she walked in the door I told her. She did not even get the chance to tell me.
“It feels as if it was a year ago and as if it was yesterday. It will only get to sink in when I get to hold her hand.”
Ms Brannigan said Danielle had decided not to stay in India but was planning to learn how to teach yoga and was due to fly to Canada to begin a new chapter in her life in September. The heartbroken mum said her daughter had been granted a visa and how she had wished she had gone to Canada instead of India.
“She was humming and hawing between the two for a while,” she said. “I was not happy about her going to India this time. I would have preferred her to go to Canada. but she said ‘I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world other than India and that’s where I want to be’.”
She also said that although she wants justice for her first-born, she did not want “an eye for an eye”.
