Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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And she was very beautiful. This beautiful woman, you know, getting married, all these lovely pictures. And, you know, the poor Irish woman that was murdered. This was terrible. And then as you went on, her picture kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And the picture of the suspects kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And it was miscarriage of justice, you know, police corruption. And it changed and you could see somebody changing. And it was just there on the front pages of the papers.
I'm Nicola Tallent and this is Crime World, a podcast about criminals, drugs and the sins of the underworld. If you like this podcast and want to learn more about crime, go to our new website, www.crimeworld.com, for stories, extras and podcast subscriber specials.
When honeymoon bride Michaela Macarivi was murdered in Mauritius 15 years ago, journalist Alison Morris was sent out to cover the story. She returned to the island many times over the years as a chaotic police investigation team blundered a trial, fitted up suspects and let her real killers walk free.
Today I'm talking to Alison about the tragedy and the reality that nobody may ever be brought to justice for Michaela's stolen life. You're listening to Crime World, a podcast from crimeworld.com. So 15 years ago, both you and I in different parts of the forest were out in Mauritius covering the murder of Michaela Macarivi, a murder that appeared that it was going to be solved quick, swiftly.
Yeah. And suspects were rounded up. But my goodness.
was just never really convinced I don't know about you but I remember going to that the murder investigation team offices do you remember that sort of rickety big colonial building in the middle of the capital of Mauritius and nothing they were saying was making sense I mean I remember you were asking questions I was asking questions and I always remember saying Was she sexually assaulted?
Was there sexual motive? And the police officer went, no, she was fully clothed. And then seeing the awful crime scene pictures and she had a bikini on her and a wee skirt wrapped around her. There was all sorts of things that you just thought... I think that Mauritius relied so heavily on tourism at the time.
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Chapter 2: What happened to Michaela McAreavey on her honeymoon?
And when I went back, you know, all those years later to make the documentary that I made with the BBC, we went to the old newspaper archive and it was amazing because the week after the murder, it was this...
picture of this beautiful and she was very beautiful this beautiful woman you know getting married all these lovely pictures and you know the poor Irish woman that was murdered this was terrible and then as you went on her picture kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller and the picture of the suspects kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and it was miscarriage of justice you know police corruption and it changed and you could see the sympathy changing and it was just there on the front pages of the papers
And I suppose just to recap. So it was January 10th, 2011, and she was on honeymoon with her then husband, John. They had done whatever. They'd gone to the pool that day. I think they'd gone for lunch. She had gone back to the room to collect a packet of biscuits so they could have a cup of tea and some biscuits. And she didn't come back. Yeah.
He followed after her and made the discovery of her floating in a bath. Now, the rooms had these huge big kind of like roundy baths with the... It was a honeymoon hotel, so there was a big circular bath almost in the middle of the room. Yeah, almost in the middle. Yeah, there wasn't quite a bathroom.
And it wasn't even a wall between, I think it was like a screen sort of almost between the room and the bath. It was, you know, very designed for honeymoon couples.
For sure. And balconies overlooking the sea. Beautiful, you know, beautiful resort and all the rest of it. Initially, as the news started filtering back, the police over there had brought John McAreevy into custody and questioned him. Roughly, it would later emerge.
And then as the kind of the time went on and the Irish ambassador, who I think was the nearest was based in South Africa at the time, came to the island and the pressure kind of went on from here as well. And there was a group of men rounded up who worked in the hotel.
And there was a narrative that there was a theft ring and that they were stealing coins and stuff from rooms of very wealthy people. It was a very poor place.
Port Louis itself was... There was a fettering in the hotel they were stealing, but they were stealing such small amounts of money that for a long time it wasn't noticed. And I don't know about you, but when I'm on holiday, if I left, you know, a handful of euros on a dressing table and someone came in and took 10 of them, I wouldn't notice.
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Chapter 3: How did the investigation into Michaela's murder unfold?
So she's laying by herself around the pool. He had went to play golf. He came back and they arranged to have lunch together in one of the wee sort of pool bars. They had their lunch and then she had brought all of these biscuits with her. She didn't drink. She was teetotal. But she apparently had a wild sweet tooth.
And so she carried loads of biscuits around with her everywhere she went on holiday. She then took the key. She didn't have her key with her. He had the only key. She took the key, said, order me a tea. I'm going to fly back to the room and I'll be back. So he's sitting there, paid the bills. She still hadn't come back. He went to the room, knocked the door. There was no reply.
And he didn't have a key.
Yes.
So then he had to go, which was a fairly... a track right to the hotel massive resort so he tracks up to the hotel reception and he tells reception and there's a bellboy there and the bell they said the bellboy walked down with him and opened the door so he walks back down with the bellboy the bellboy opens the door and he goes into the room and Michaela is floating in the bath and
Now he I think originally thought that maybe she had got into the bath and passed out because she had taken a period I think that morning and she was in she was in pain she was saying she was cramping. He thought maybe she'd get into a warm bath or something and she passed out. Hadn't realized she'd been murdered. He lifts her out of the bath and tries to do some kind of CPR on her.
At this stage she'd probably been dead for quite some time. The official line that the police were telling us at the time was that she had walked into the room, found this robbery going wrong. They had killed her, they'd strangled her and they had placed her in the bath of water. And...
In order to make it look like a drowning or an accident?
To wash evidence off her.
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Chapter 4: What were the initial police responses to Michaela's case?
They went and gave evidence against other local people on behalf of a foreigner, which is how it was being treated then, which it wasn't when we were there first at the start. You could see there was genuine, they're lovely people.
But after the trial, it was really the judge who called a halt to it all, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, I think the judge realized that this is just not right.
The trial was absolutely horrific for the family too. And I think at one stage they were having to like almost police escort John McAreevy and his sister and Michaela's brother in and out of the court. I mean, it got really nasty and heated. It must have been the worst experience ever.
Because the locals believed and rightly so that there was a fit up here.
Yeah, they believed that these people had been fitted up and it just became really, really aggressive. And the local press, if you go back and look, I mean, that was the narrative that they were running, that this was a stitch up. And you find out really at the time. I suppose my whole brief was to get the story of Michaela and what had happened and the murder and the facts.
And I spoke at the time to the president at the time, the prime minister, president of Mauritius. I spoke to him. I spoke to senior police officers. I spoke to local people. I spoke to the hotel owner, all of that.
But when I went back then 10 years later with the BBC, I suppose you have a different, because you're then saying, well, like, let's look at this with a wider lens and see what happened. And so we again go back and retrace and speak to all the same people again. But we also spoke then to the defense lawyers who became almost famous and part of the story.
And they, you know, they are a colorful bunch, I have to say. And most of them were educated in England. They all go to England to study law. Mauritian law, because obviously it was a colonized country, their law is very similar to UK.
So the common law would be a very, very similar pattern, which for me made it easy to understand rather than, you know, Spanish law, which is difficult to understand. But they were called, the local media called them the Avengers.
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Chapter 5: What role did media coverage play in the investigation?
And they were lovely, very gentle people. Like I remember going and knocking doors of people who had been arrested and their wives answering the door. And even when they were telling you to go away, they were doing it in a, I am sorry, I am so sorry, but I can't speak to you. Could you please know I'm sorry? And I'm thinking these are the politest people I've ever met.
They were, they were very gentle.
Yeah. And no doubt people, you know, the hotel name changed as is often the way with when something terrible happens.
It's completely been refurbished now. It doesn't look like the same hotel.
And I'm sure those who check in don't even know what happened.
You know, that room is still very much in operation, albeit it is unrecognizable from what it was. It is still completely beautiful. It's not so much honeymoon. I had a lot of families there when I was there, because remember, it's banking now. So there's a lot of people from the Middle East and everything here involved in banking here now.
They're working and a lot of them have their families and they're going up there for their lunch and dinner. So it's a very different vibe than there was when we were there. But, you know. in terms of Apurna Keelan when I think of her whole life ahead of her. And they'd been to Dubai before that. They'd done a week in Dubai and then they were doing a week in Mauritius and then coming home.
And, you know, this was to be their sort of beachy part of their holiday, you know, him playing golf, her getting a tan and having lovely dinners at night. And for something like that to happen, it's just, I mean... And she's frozen forever in those photographs. Isn't she in her wedding dress that she was buried in?
Yeah, yeah. No, terribly sad. Okay, we'll leave that for the moment. You've been listening to Crime World, a podcast from crimeworld.com. Edited and presented by me, Nicola Talent. Co-presenter, Niall Donald. Producer, Ian Mullaney. Senior writer, producer, Jenny Friel. Assistant producers, Nasa Kumalski and Chloe McPolin. Episode editor, Jason Mullaney.
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Chapter 6: How did the public perception of the case change over time?
So he's born in 1957. He's six years older than Gerry the Monk Hutch, which just gives him a little bit of a... And, you know, we can we can see where he is. He's what I would always say was into the bosom of a respectable middle class family. Now, some intrigue comes with this. His father, to my understanding, was a taxi driver who worked the Gresham rank on taxis.
Stephens Green, and that would have been a good job.
That would have been a good job, a well-earning job, certainly back in the day when taxis were protected. His father was also at some point registered, I think, as a dairy farm manager. And also people would say he was involved in street trading, not, you know... as a lot of people in Dublin would have been over the years, involved in some stalls and selling in that sort of arena.
So, Christie Kinnan is raised in Cabra, but his birth certificate says that he was born in England, in a place called Perryvale, near Ealing, I think, in London. So this is the late 1950s when, at that time in Irish history, we were, you know, there was high unemployment. A huge number of people left Ireland to go to England at times to get work.
Many of them returned, but that would have been one of the big points of emigration where young couples got married and went over there. Certainly, Christy Kenan wasn't raised in England, but he certainly does seem to have had lived there at times. He's had connections to Birmingham and that sort of area, maybe all his life.
So he's described, I suppose, as a middle class, having a middle class upbringing.
Well, I suppose the first house that we can look upon that we know he was in as a child, and he was the only boy in a family of three girls, Denise, Maria and Sally-Anne. The mother appears to run a B&B from what is a generous Edwardian house. Do you know the name of the road?
Charlville Road. So, I mean, yeah, I know it well. I mean, I would have grown up very close to there. I mean, those houses are worth a huge amount of money.
Now, like a lot of houses in that area, for example, those big houses on the North Circular Road, which aren't far away, there probably would have been times where you would have picked them up at a bargain price, but it would be very, very far away from some of the figures we've discussed, for example, the grinding poverty in which Gerry Hutch would have been born into poverty.
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