Damien's concealment of Katy's body

Damien Donnelly’s concealment of Katy Devlin’s body was a sequence of improvised decisions made after he killed her at the archaeological dig. Rather than carry out a settled plan, he moved her from the finds shed to the tools shed, then to the Knocknaree altar stone the next night. His account ties those choices to fear of being seen, uncertainty about what to do, and an inability to continue hiding what had happened. The eventual placement of Katy’s body at the site also made Damien one of the people who discovered it, extending the concealment into a performance of apparent innocence.

From the finds shed to the tools shed

During questioning, Damien recalled that Katy arrived earlier than he had expected, carrying chocolate biscuits. After speaking with him briefly about a ballet school, she turned toward a shelf at his direction; he then struck her with a rock. The confession establishes the killing as the immediate cause of the concealment, while its halting delivery presents Damien as struggling to recount what he had done. The account is a retrospective statement made under interrogation, not an uninterrupted scene observed by the investigators.

Damien said he could not leave Katy in the finds shed because the police would discover her there. He began to carry her toward the archaeological site, but saw a light in Knocknaree wood that he thought might indicate someone nearby. Afraid that the person might see him, he turned back rather than continue. This interruption redirected the concealment: in the tools shed, he wrapped Katy in a tarp and placed her beneath others. He described the covering as a way to protect her from insects and animals, and said he did not want to leave her exposed in a field where she might not be found for days. His explanation combines concealment from investigators with a stated reluctance to abandon her carelessly; the two impulses coexist without making his actions less deliberate.

Cleaning and leaving the scene

Before going home, Damien attempted to clean the finds shed. He described washing blood from the floor and steps with water taken from a hose, while repeatedly having to stop because he felt ill. He said the work seemed to take a long time and that he feared other members of the dig team would arrive. In the dark, he was reluctant to use his torch because he worried that the light could draw the attention of whoever he thought was in the wood. The account makes the shed, the torch, and the possibility of discovery part of a single anxious calculation: he was trying to erase evidence while fearing that any movement might expose him.

Damien also recalled leaving the rock and Katy’s small torch behind the tarps. When he lifted the coverings, shadows briefly made it seem to him that she was moving, and he stopped. He said he washed his gloves and returned them to their bag, locked the sheds, and walked home. At that point his immediate effort to conceal the killing had not resolved what to do with Katy’s body. His description instead ends with exhaustion and a decision to leave the problem for another night. He began to cry as he finished recounting this part of the account.

Moving Katy to the altar stone

The following day, Damien said, was difficult to endure: he was exhausted, feared that anyone entering the tools shed would discover the body, and tried to act normally around his colleagues. That night he returned to the shed, put on gloves, and removed Katy. He remembered that she was cold, and said he did not want to touch her, but felt he had to move her.

He carried her to the site and placed her on the Knocknaree altar stone, which he said seemed safer from animals and more likely to bring discovery before she was left undiscovered for longer. He tried to arrange her so that she looked as if she were sleeping. He disposed of the rock and rinsed the plastic bag before putting it back where it had been, but could not find Katy’s torch, which remained somewhere beneath the tarps. Asked why he had not buried her, Damien said the idea had not occurred to him; he had wanted to leave quickly and could not regard burying her as an acceptable way to dispose of her. His account presents the move to the altar stone not as a burial or a completed plan, but as a rushed attempt to control where she would be found while avoiding further contact with the body.

Discovery and the limits of the confession

Damien’s account continued beyond the physical concealment. He said he had worried that hair or fibers from his clothes might connect him to Katy, despite having worn gloves. He also described being unable to find a plausible reason to go to the site, until Mark Hanly sent a colleague to work on the altar stone. Damien then became one of the people who discovered Katy’s body. He later said that, after the discovery, it was easier to stop pretending that everything was normal. The discovery thus served two opposing purposes: it brought the hidden body into view, but Damien’s presence among the discoverers helped conceal his involvement for a time.

Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox had first encouraged Damien to confess by proposing that the killer might be someone who had not wanted to kill and warning of the fear and distress that could follow continued concealment. After Damien acknowledged that their description sounded familiar, he described the killing and the movement of Katy’s body. But the confession did not initially cover every relevant act. When investigators confronted him with the post-mortem findings and the trowel found in the tools shed, Rob Ryan pressed him about an assault on Katy that Damien had omitted. Damien began crying and did not answer the question of motive in that exchange. The episode therefore distinguishes the body’s concealment, which Damien recounted in detail, from the fuller account of what happened to Katy: his statement emerged under emotional pressure and questioning, and the omissions remained consequential.