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3 Jun
The body of a three year-old who was drowned at sea by her father in a horrific murder-suicide has been exhumed from their shared West Cork grave.
American woman Rebecca Saunders has been campaigning to bring her daughter Clarissa McCarthy's remains home to her in the US.
Rebecca was just 26 when 50 year-old Martin McCarthy drowned their child, 'friendly, playful,' toddler Clarissa. Rebecca moved home to Texas after the tragedy.
After a year of campaigning and over $55,000 in donations, the day has come when Rebecca can be reunited with her child.
The father drowned the little girl in 2013 after Rebecca told him that their marriage was over.
Clarissa was killed when Martin walked the toddler into the sea at at Audley Cove in Ballydehob. Martin then took his own life.
The two were buried in the same coffin in Schull.
Last year, Rebecca began fundraising to bring Clarissa to her home of Texas, revealing she had only allowed the joint burial “in a fog of grief and shock," and said that it was an "awful mistake."
Rebecca admitted she regretted allowing Clarissa to be buried “with the father she loved but who took her life from her."
In March of 2022, Cork County Council granted the American woman permission to exhume her daughter. The two bodies were removed from the grave this morning, Friday June 3rd.
Cork County Council confirmed on Friday that the single coffin containing the bodies of Martin McCarthy and tragic Clarissa was removed from Schull graveyard.
The bodies are to be separated. The father and daughter shared a coffin with the little girl placed in his arms.
Michael McCarthy's remains are to be interred in Schull.
Last year, Rebecca said she had spoken to a funeral director who had told her that it would be possible to exhume her daughter and send her remains to Texas; "once the exhumation is carried out, they could separate Clarissa from her murderer."
Clarissa's remains will be cremated and will be brought 'home' to Rebecca in Texas.
A memorial plaque is to be placed at Audley Cove, at the beach where the family once enjoyed time together, and also where little Clarissa spent her last moments.
After over 9 years of campaigning to be reunited with her daughter, Rebecca said "This moment has been a long time coming. Soon I will be able to take her from where she currently rests and bring her home with me.
"Soon I will be able to take my baby home."
Rebecca has said she is convinced the killing of their daughter was premeditated, an evil act to punish her after she said she was leaving her husband.
“I really can’t say I feel I will ever be able to forgive him. I feel like he used his daughter as a sword to stab me in the heart with.
“And I think that is very, very wrong. At the time I didn’t know just how planned out Martin had gone."
In a suicide note left for his wife, McCarthy wrote: "If you can take Clarissa to America I can take Clarissa to Heaven.”
He also vowed that it would be a day his wife would "never forget".
“You can now get on with the rest of your life as mine and Clarissa's is about to end. By the time you will get to read this letter I and Clarissa will be in Heaven.
"You did not realise how much I loved you, I could not see my daughter being raised up by a step father,” he said in the note found after the horrific incident.
Rebecca later learned McCarthy had gone to a family court to ensure that his daughter wouldn’t be allowed to leave Ireland.