A Letterkenny man has revealed how his mother looked outside her window everyday for three years waiting for her missing son to return before she died.
James McGlynn, 56, told a coroner’s court today how he has spent the past 30 years trying to unravel the mystery of his missing brother.
The unidentified body of Noel McGlynn has rested in an unmarked grave at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Dunfanaghy since it was washed up on rocks nearby on June 26th, 1983.
The body was never identified and the missing man’s brother James has spent all that time trying to prove the body was that of his brother Noel.
Noel, who was then 26, went missing after leaving his house at Ballaghderg two weeks beforehand.
An earlier inquest finally discovered that samples taken from the body had matched the body with the DNA of the McGlynn family through swabs taken from James McGlynn.
A further inquest found that Noel McGlynn died as a result of drowning.
Retired Garda Bernard Kelly told the court that dental records had been sent to dentists nationwide while a description of the body was also sent out and as far as Interpol.
However he said nothing had come back to identify the body.
James McGlynn also revealed in court that another brother had identified the body as NOT being that of the men’s missing brother Noel when he went to the mortuary at Letterkenny General Hospital.
However he later admitted that he did not identify the body at all because he did not “have the stomach” to see his brother.
James McGlynn told the court that his late mother and father Frances and Charles McGlynn had always waited on their son to return but he never did.
“My mother never got over it. She always thought Noel was going to come home. She sat in the window looking out for him to return every single day.
“They were always waiting on the knock on the door from Gardai but it never came,” he said.
The court heard that Noel McGlynn had been a gifted artist but had destroyed all his artworks and books before he went missing.
He had been suffering from depression and had been attending the psychiatric services at St Conal’s Hospital in Letterkenny.
However in 2012 DNA samples sent to a laboratory in the United Kingdom returned a positive match with the McGlynn family.
Tributes were paid to Gardai and especially to Dr David Barry for his foresight on preserving the tissue samples to allow for DNA analysis at the time.
Coroner John Cannon returned a verdict of death by drowning.
He pleaded with Mr James McGlynn to get his life back on track and to seek help after suffering from alcoholism.