The parents and sister of a murdered schoolgirl were among the first to give evidence when the Central Criminal Court trial of a man accused of her murder opened yesterday.
The jury was told that forensic evidence would show that fibres from clothes worn by the girl were found on the accused man's jumper and on the front passenger seat of his car.
The Co Galway man on trial for the murder and two counts of rape cannot be named for legal reasons. The case is being heard in camera.
The 26-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to the murder of the 17-year-old at a beach on the west coast on December 6th 1998.
He also denies that on the same night he had unlawful sexual intercourse with the girl, and he denies that he sexually assaulted her with an object.
The girl had travelled in a car with her sister and friends to a local disco on the previous night. She was not going to the disco but had decided to go in the car "for the spin".
In evidence, the girl's mother told the court she discovered her daughter was missing when she went to wake her up the next morning. Shortly after midday she rang the Garda.
The girl's body was found in a rocky inlet on a remote beach later that afternoon.
The jury was told that evidence of a post-mortem examination would show that the girl died from drowning and compression of the neck. The Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, will give evidence that she found features of drowning, injuries to the neck, and evidence of sexual assault including severe vaginal injuries.
The girl's mother told the trial that her last words to her two daughters as she dropped them off by car at a pub before they got a lift to the disco were: "Don't be late, and be careful."
Breaking down a number of times, the mother identified some items belonging to her daughter, including a fleece jacket found near where her body lay, and a necklace chain and half-heart pendant imprinted with the words "Friends Forever".
One of the girl's two sisters, an 18-year-old arts student at the time of the killing, told the trial that on the night the girl "wasn't too pushed" whether she went to the village where the discos were held. But she remembered that later, in a local pub, her sister said they would "go for a spin" and a friend agreed to drive them there.
When they got to the hotel where the adult disco was to be held she left her sister in the car and never saw her again.
In his evidence, the girl's father said that after reporting their daughter missing, shortly after midday that day, the family searched the locality, including a local beach, a hall and the school.
As he was returning home, he said, he was stopped by his sister-in-law, who was with a priest and a local woman. They told him of the finding of his daughter's body.
Earlier, opening the case to the jury, counsel for the DPP, Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, said that forensic evidence was of "very considerable importance" to the prosecution case.
He said that a State forensic scientist would give evidence that fibres found on a jumper that witnesses would say was worn by the accused on the night of the murder gave "very strong support to the proposition" that the girl was in contact with the accused man's jumper. Fibres found in the front passenger seat of his car gave "strong support" to the proposition that she had been in the car, the evidence would show.
Mr Buckley said that the prosecution would call witnesses who would allege that when the girl was in her friend's car outside the hotel where the disco was being held, "a big blondie fellow in his 20s was sitting on a wall near the car" and that he "passed by the car on a few occasions and looked in". The prosecution allege that this was the accused.
The girl became separated from her company when she was trying to go to a local chip shop to go to the toilet at about 12.40 a.m., the trial heard. She never came back to the car. "It's the prosecution's contention that she was taken away or went away with someone in that period."
The trial before Mr Justice Patrick Smith and a jury continues.