Bombshell twist as expert says Kelly Lynch canal death was staged ‘to look like drowning’ amid concerns over 93 injuries

A WOMAN found dead by a canal with 93 injuries was killed — with her death staged to look like a drowning, an expert says.

Gardai initially treated the death of Kelly Marie Lynch, 23, as an accident.

Her body was discovered near ­Horseshoe Bridge, Co Monaghan, on St Patrick’s Day 2024 — with the initial post-mortem ­concluding that she had drowned.

But Kelly’s devastated family believe she met a violent end.

And Irish-trained pathologist Dr Fintan Garavan, who reviewed the autopsy, has ruled Kelly most likely died after a violent attack.

He told new documentary The Girl in the Water, which airs on RTE One at 9.35pm on Wednesday, that he believes it was homicide “until proven otherwise”.

He added: “I have concerns because there are injuries here which don’t make any sense.

“It’s their location, it’s their ­number, it’s the pattern that they’re in. It strongly suggests that there was somebody else present when Kelly died.”

And Dr Garavan declared: “In my opinion, this was meant to look like a drowning.”

Kelly’s mum, Julieanne, says her death “haunts all” the family, with so many questions unanswered.

She said: “The State Pathologist found 93 injuries on my daughter’s body.

“Kelly’s body was a map. Kelly’s body was a portrait of everything that she went through.

“There’s an awful lot of questions. What happened to my daughter?”

Kelly, from Co Fermanagh, had travelled to Monaghan to support her boyfriend following a death in his family.

Dad Sean said: “I dropped her down and I passed all my condolences to the family.

“As always, Kelly was a hugger. She gave the best hugs. She gave a kiss on the cheek and a long hug. And that was the last time I’d seen her alive.”

At first Kelly’s death was treated as unsuspicious.

But Julieanne said “alarm bells started going off” the moment she saw all the bruising as her daughter lay in her coffin.

An “assumption” she had jumped off the bridge spread fast and the “narrative of suicide then followed”.

However Kelly’s parents insist “she wasn’t suicidal”, with plans to study child development and hopes to become an apprentice.

And ­Julieanne questions how Kelly ended “lying there for almost 30 hours” before her body was found.

Dad Sean also told how gardai called him and Julieanne in for a meeting and handed them a box eight days after her death.

He tells the doc: “I said ‘what’s this?’ He says ‘clothes that Kelly was wearing’. It didn’t feel right.”

A new Garda peer review of the force’s probe, revealed last week, confirmed over 20 deficiencies relating to investigative failures.

And Julieanne said: “We haven’t had any closure, really, and I don’t think we’re ever going to have 100 per cent closure.

“There’s always going to be that part of us that’s constantly missing Kelly and wishing that this didn’t happen to us.

“But then the thing that’s holding us back is we have no answers.”

Gardai confirmed a number of observations from the peer review have been flagged with the Office of the Police Ombudsman.

• The Girl in the Water airs on RTE One at 9.35pm on Wednesday