Gardai will exhume the remains of an unidentified man who washed up on a Leitrim beach in the 1980s, in a bid to solve a 34-year-old mystery.
The Irish Independent reports that he body, which was later buried in Manorhamilton, was discovered on Tullaghan Strand in north Leitrim in May of 1986.
The man is believed to have drowned and no foul play is suspected.
An exhumation of the remains will take place later this month under the supervision detectives of the Garda Missing Persons bureau.
In a statement to the Irish Independent, the Department of Justice confirmed that a ministerial order for the exhumation had been granted by Justice Minister Helen McEntee under Section 47 of the Coroner’s Acts. This followed a request from the Coroner for Co Leitrim for the exhumation, for the purposes of DNA retrieval.
A post-mortem was carried out prior to burial in Manorhamilton in the 1980s, but no DNA profile was obtained.
It is hoped that advances in forensic science, in particular DNA identification, could help investigators to finally identify the man.
