Boy feared secretly buried was ‘wrapped in blanket and carried to final resting place in rucksack’

Irish police were told the boy’s body was wrapped in a blanket and placed in a rucksack

The little boy missing, presumed dead in north Dublin, was placed in a rucksack and carried to his secret burial place.

It’s understood gardai were told the body of the boy was wrapped in a blanket before being placed in the rucksack and carried to his burial on marshy lands along the Portrane Road in Donabate.

It is now over a week since it was discovered that the little boy – who was around three years of age when he was last seen alive in 2021 – is no longer alive and has been secretly buried. He would be around seven years old now.

Searches continue this week on the stretch of marshy lands that has been sealed off as dozens of officers scour the stretch of land, which is around 4km from the apartment block where the child was last seen alive

The mother – who was born in Africa but has lived in Ireland since she was a child – continues to maintain that the child passed away in his sleep from natural causes.

Earlier we revealed how the little boy was kept in the apartment for 24 hours following his death – and then removed from the property the following night, placed in a rucksack and secretly buried on lands over 4km away.

The little boy’s parents gave him up for adoption and placed with a foster family in State care with Tusla – the Child and Family Agency. However, when the boy was around 18 months old, his mother changed her mind and he was returned to her and her then partner, the boy’s dad.

Both the boy’s mother and his father – who is from Ireland but has since moved to South America – continue to be spoken to informally by investigators.

And sources say they both are saying the same thing – that they discovered the boy dead in his bed and panicked and secretly buried him in the marshy lands nearby. Sources say the shallow grave the little boy was placed in was dug by hand.

Earlier we revealed that the mother, accompanied by her solicitor Martin O’Donnell of Morgan Redmond Solicitors in Swords and investigators, showed officers a new spot in the stretch of land last Saturday evening, where she claims the boy’s remains were buried in secret.

That new location is on the same stretch of land where the initial search commenced but in a different spot. However, so far as the search continues, no remains of the little boy have been found.

Gardai from Swords Station, who are leading the investigation, are working on the assumption that the boy is buried on the land.

But, there are fears that because he was buried in a shallow grave, that wild animals such as foxes, which have been seen in the area, may have disturbed his remains. Sources say gardai are “certain the child existed but that the child is now dead.”

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