A MAN whose sister’s murder remains unsolved 50 years after her death has blasted their wait for justice.
Marian Beattie was on a night out at a charity dance with her best friend, Nuala Wilson, and her brother Isadore, on March 30, 1973 in Aughnacloy, Co. Tyrone.
She was just 18 when she was last seen by her brother leaving the venue with a boy she had been dancing with and promised to be back at their van by 2am.
But she never returned and her body was found hours later at the bottom of a quarry in just her underwear.
Isadore recalled: “We drove straight to the quarry and the strange thing about it is that when we pulled up to the quarry, we just drove straight to where she was within 50ft, 60ft. . . I could see her lying on the bottom of the quarry.
“My first reaction was to run down and get her and the two policemen said, ‘No don’t, we cannot allow you to go there and get her.’”
He added: “Just looking at her you knew it wasn’t an accident because accidents don’t happen like that.”
It emerged she had been hit with a piece of metal.
Isadore told TG4 documentary Maru Inar Measc: “People will tell you time is a great healer. 50 years later it feels no different. When you take your younger sister away to enjoy herself and bring her home in a coffin, it’s not a good feeling.
“To watch your own mother and father almost collapse in grief, that was one of the most hardest things that has ever happened to me in my life. Gut-wrenching and heartbreaking at the same time.”
The case then went unsolved for decades, until the family convinced the PSNI in 2013 to reopen it, all while they carried out their own investigations. This discovered that evidence was missing.
In 2022, a report was sent to the Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson which identified five possible suspects.
Isadore added: “If somebody can tell me that it takes 50 years to get justice for your sister, for your daughter, there’s something wrong with the system.”
Maru Inar Measc airs on Wednesday at 9.30pm on TG4.
