Family say final farewell to murder victim Melanie (16)
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THE FAMILY of murdered teenager Melanie McCarthy McNamara said their final farewells to her in London today.
The youngest victim of gang feuding was buried dressed in her favourite pink tracksuit after a funeral service at St Dominic’s Church , Kentish Town.
Hundreds of people attended the mass including her fiancé Christopher Moran. He was one of the pallbearers who all wore identical pink shirts.
A massive floral display with the words ‘Our Barbie Doll’ was transported in a truck behind the hearse.
Meanwhile, two men, arrested yesterday in Athy Co Kildare in relation to her murder, were still being held at Tallaght Garda Station today.
A man, aged 23, from Crumlin, Dublin and a 17-year-old from Tallaght were held in an arrest operation involved officers from Tallaght, detectives in the National Bureau Of Criminal Investigation and local gardai from Kildare.
Gardai are describing the arrests at a rented flat in Athy, as ‘significant’. It is understood that they may have been trying to leave the country.
The suspects were detained in Tallaght Garda Station under laws designed to crack down on gangs and organised crime, Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act.
Melanie was from a Traveller family and had lived in Limerick, London and more recently in Tallaght.
However, it is in north London, where she spent several years growing up, that her family opted to hold her funeral.
Her killing has been blamed on an indiscriminate attack linked to a feud involving local groups with links to the Travelling community and disputes over drugs.
She was murdered when a gunman opened fire with a shotgun as she sat in the back seat of a car on February 7 last.
She had been in a car with her boyfriend and two others, one of whom was believed to have been the intended target.
A shotgun, believed to be the murder weapon, was recovered close to where the getaway car was abandoned in the Citywest area of Dublin, near Brown's Barn restaurant, minutes after the killing.
Clothes were also left behind by the killers, which detectives believe holds a huge amount of DNA evidence.
Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan and Travellers' support groups have appealed for calm and no retaliation over the killing.
- INDEPENDENT.IE REPORTERS
