Tragic backpacker Danielle McLaughlin may not be reunited with her family until next Tuesday, more than two weeks after she was murdered in India.
The body of the 28-year-old was flown into Dublin Airport this morning after a three day journey from Goa.
Danielle’s family are now waiting to see if they can have a second post-mortem carried out on the body of the young Buncrana woman.
It may now be Monday by the time that takes place as the coroner’s office does not carry out autopsy procedures at weekends.
A post-mortem has already been carried out on Danielle’s body in India.
However, Danielle’s family insisted on a second autopsy here in Ireland.
A family source said they were not happy with events in India and how Danielle’s situation had been handled.
It has also now been revealed that further medical procedures are to be undertaken on Danielle in Belfast before she returns to her home on the Inishowen Peninsula.
Realistically it may now be Tuesday when the remains of Danielle are returned to her mother Andrea and her four younger sisters.
Local Sinn Fein Senator said this is a very difficult time for the family but they are just pleased that Danielle’s remains are back on Irish soil.
“We are grateful that Danielle is back on Irish soil and now it is a matter of getting her home to her family as quickly as we can,” he said.
Danielle’s mother Andrea said she will not fully accept that her daughter is dead until she holds her hand.
Speaking from her home in Buncrana, Co Donegal, Andrea said she just knew that her eldest daughter had died when her friend Louise McMenamin arrived at her home in Marian Park on Tuesday week last.
“I knew as soon as I saw her. As soon as she walked in the door I told her. She did not even get the chance to tell me.
“It feels as if it was a year ago and if it was yesterday. It will only get to sink in when I get to hold her hand.”
Andrea also revealed that Danielle had decided not to stay in India but was merely planning to learn how to teach yoga and was due to fly to Canada to begin a new chapter in her life in September.
The heartbroken mum said her daughter had already been granted a visa and how she had wished she had gone to Canada instead of India.
She revealed “She was hemming and hawing between the two for a while. I was not happy about her going to India this time. I would have preferred her to go to Canada. but she said ‘I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world other than India and that’s where I want to be.”
Andrea recalled how her daughter was always touring but loved nothing more than coming home to see her four younger sisters.
The mother and daughter would keep in touch by Facebook and if Danielle was out of reach, she would let her mum know in advance that she was not contactable.
She told how her daughter loved nothing more than to call down to her local library in Buncrana and write her diary for hours in end.
It was here that she recalls her at her happiest the last time she was home in Buncrana before heading off on her adventures again.
“Danielle loved nothing more than when she was here the last time – sitting down in the library, reflecting on her life. It was the happiest I ever saw her.”
But she said it is her younger sisters Joleene, 18, Seanne, 12, Traighheanach, 9 and Skimarie, 3, (all names correct) who will miss her most.
“The girls were her life. She could not stay away for a year and not see them,” she said.
Local man Vikat Bhagat, 23, stands accused of Danielle’s murder.
And although Andrea said she wants justice for her first-born, she did not want “an eye for an eye.”
She said “Danielle did not believe in an eye for an eye.”
Looking to the coming days, weeks, months and years ahead without Danielle, Andrea said she simply does not know how she is going to cope.
“I don’t know, I really don’t know. I don;t know life without Danielle. I don;t know what life is going to be like. I don’t want to even think about it,” she said.
