Strawberry hair clip

The Strawberry hair clip is a small, all-plastic object found in the dirt at the base of the stone beside Katy Devlin’s body at Knocknaree. Its importance comes from a precise resemblance: the kind of clip described by the forensic examiner matches one reported among the belongings of Jamie Rowan, who disappeared with Peter Savage in 1984. The object becomes a material lead between two investigations separated by years, but the evidence establishes a possible connection, not certain ownership.

Discovery and Description

During the examination of the site, Sophie describes the clip as pushed down into the earth at the base of the stone. She judges that it has probably been there for some time and doubts it belonged to Katy Devlin. It is not the sort of item she associates with a teenager: the clip is entirely plastic, with a plastic strawberry at its end, and looks more like something worn by a younger child.

That assessment sits alongside a jumble of more ordinary traces. Sophie reports cigarette butts, beer and soft-drink cans, gum, the ends of three joints, used condoms, and footprints scattered around the spot, much of it likely left by local youths. The clip stands apart from this debris not because its presence proves anything by itself, but because its age, placement, and distinctive decoration make it potentially identifiable. Unlike the general litter, it offers investigators a specific description to compare with an earlier record.

Cassie Maddox is cautious about assigning it to Katy. Katy’s clothes and accessories are described as coordinated in blue and white, including her hair elastics, whereas the Strawberry hair clip is a conspicuously different, childlike design. The investigators agree to check it rather than treat resemblance or location as proof. Their restraint matters: the clip is found beside the body, but that circumstance alone cannot show when it arrived or who wore it.

Recognition and the Missing-Persons File

The description triggers Rob Ryan’s memory of Jamie Rowan. When Cassie asks what he made of the clip, Rob recalls that Jamie had worn one matching that description. His recollection is initially distinct from the documentary record; Cassie asks whether the association is in the file or whether he simply remembers it. Rob does not explain the difference, and the exchange leaves the source of his recognition momentarily unsettled.

Later, after the station has largely emptied, Rob goes to the basement where old case files are kept. He retrieves the box labeled for Jamie Rowan and Peter Savage and checks the statement taken from Jamie’s mother. The record describes Jamie as having blond hair and hazel eyes, and wearing a red T-shirt, cut-off denim shorts, white runners, and red hair clips decorated with strawberries. The detail confirms that Rob’s remembered association has a basis in the missing-child file. It still does not identify the recovered clip as Jamie’s: the record documents what Jamie wore, not the history of this particular object.

The act of checking the file also changes the clip’s status in the investigation. It is no longer merely an unusual object at a crime scene or a detail recalled by Rob; it now matches a recorded feature of one of the missing children. Rob takes the file upstairs, where Cassie reports that Mark Hanly and Margaret Devlin have no convictions, while Jonathan Devlin has a conviction from that February. Those checks do not establish anything about the clip, but place its lead within the team’s broader effort to assess people connected to the current case.

Investigative Significance

At a briefing, Cassie presents a possible sex-crime theory and explains why the 1984 disappearances cannot be excluded from consideration. The children were of a similar age and disappeared in the same location; beside Katy Devlin’s body, investigators have also found a drop of old blood being compared with samples from 1984. Cassie includes the hair clip because its description fits one of the missing girl’s recorded belongings. Together, these details justify examining a connection, without demonstrating that the same person committed both crimes or that the clip itself belonged to Jamie.

The distinction between a match and an identification is central to the object’s evidentiary role. The Strawberry hair clip carries a distinctive, recorded description, and its discovery gives the investigators a concrete reason to revisit an unresolved disappearance. Yet the available evidence does not establish who left it at the stone, how long it had been there, or whether it had passed between people. Its strongest contribution is to direct attention backward: from Katy Devlin’s murder to the children lost at Knocknaree in 1984.

Narrative Function and Limits

The clip makes the past present through a modest physical detail rather than through a complete explanation. Its plastic strawberry is memorable enough for Rob to recognize, while the written statement supplies a second, independent route to the same association. The sequence moves from forensic description, to personal recollection, to archival confirmation, and finally to a cautious investigative hypothesis. Each step strengthens the reason to investigate, but none closes the gap between resemblance and proven provenance.

That gap also gives the object its tension. At first the clip appears out of place among the scattered signs of adolescent use at the site; then it seems to belong to an earlier childhood disappearance. The possibility is compelling precisely because the object cannot speak for itself. It prompts a search of the record and reopens a line of inquiry, while remaining an item of uncertain ownership. The Strawberry hair clip therefore serves as a lead linking Katy Devlin’s case to Jamie Rowan’s disappearance, not as proof that the cases share a perpetrator or that Jamie’s clip has been recovered.