Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
But before saying yes to taking part in the RTÉ show, the mother of two consulted her husband Philip and their adult children Kieran and Sarah — who she did not want to embarrass. Well, Sarah is an assistant fashion buyer with River Island and my son Kieran is a lawyer with Arthur Cox. And no, I’ll never be a grandmother, because they’re just like me and don’t like kids either! [laughing again] Pic: Lili Forberg for VIP Magazine She recounts her work following the tragic deaths of Rachel O’Reilly, Siobhan Kearney, Robert Holohan, Tom O’Gorman and others – along with the Stardust exhumations and lesser known cases from her long career – outlining the subtle methods by which pathology and the justice system meet. We’ve got a double murder,” two gardaí told Marie Cassidy on the morning in 1997 when she arrived in Ireland from Glasgow, to get a feel for the country and for the work that would be involved in helping with Dr John Harbison’s workload as state pathologist. “He said to take you to the scene.” She would spend the next 13 years investigating unnatural deaths and homicides, from gangland shootings and stabbings, to drug deaths, road traffic accidents and suicides, carrying out more than 5,000 post-mortems.
READ MORE - RTE viewers full of praise for Dr Marie Cassidy after watching episode two of Dr Cassidy’s Casebook No. I've done it and I hope I've done it well. There's only a few others like me left, I'm the last of the dinosaurs ... it's time to move aside and let the young pups come in." I was a bit naïve actually, I thought oh you’ll go and do a bit of dancing for a couple of hours and then I can go and put my feet up and do whatever I want to do but it really is quite full on," she said.Body of Truth is full of suspense and the kind of in-depth forensic detail we would expect from a former state pathologist – riveting." There’s not much I can do about people who think that it’s a bit odd. Well, it is — the whole thing is very odd — but I’m just there to have some fun. It’s an opportunity to do something you haven’t done before,” she said of the response.
Retired State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy arriving to the trial of murdered schoolgirl, Ana Kriegel (Image: Collins Photo Agency) That’s for sure. Marie admitted that, as a doctor, she’s more comfortable with dead bodies than live ones. But that’s the beauty of the medical profession – there are all sorts of jobs for all sorts of people: I think it’s because Ireland is still small. There’s not six degrees of separation between you and someone who has been found dead. You always know somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody, and so it becomes a death you need to know about, because it’s almost “family”. There’s always intrigue. Dr Cassidy recounts many tragedies from both her time in Glasgow and in Ireland. I was familiar with many of the Irish cases, reminded of the faces we saw, of both victims and perpetrators, on our screens and newspapers at the time. There is one case that she recalls, in 1992, near Glasgow where the body of a young woman, a student, was discovered. One particular paragraph, where Dr Cassidy writes about the postmortem, carries great emotion evoking a huge sense of loss. Another woman is found murdered and, as pressure mounts on the gardaí to find the perpetrator, Terry’s post mortem reveals something that might hold the key to everything. But a killer is closer than she knows. And their next victim is firmly within their sights…”The only time she seems a little riled is when she recalls how the role of forensic pathologist was portrayed on screen. Meanwhile, her mother became the breadwinner. "When my dad became ill and then died, she had to take over the coal business and go out on the lorry," says Cassidy. "Not that she was carrying the bags of coal. She would have drawn the line at that. It used to be, people would use these experts [in Irish court] if it suited them and we all knew a load of baloney was coming out of their mouth,” she says. “I think now in the UK and Ireland most of the experts are pretty straight. I’ve come across some dubious ones in the past, but I think that’s been weeded out.” Retirement was something she thought long and hard about. "I had never stopped for years and I thought, 'maybe this is a big mistake'. I wasn't sure how I'd take to it."
Someone will think: 'Pull yourself together, it happened six years ago.' If only it was so simple. We would all be rolling up our sleeves and getting on with the world. But it's not and everyone has to deal with things in their own way. That is life and how people deal with death." She is also a professor of Forensic Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and Trinity College. Cassidy, who retired from her role as State pathologist in 2018, was very much looking forward to putting on her glad rags and taking to the dancefloor for the new season of the RTÉ show. At the mortuary, bone samples were taken from the remains. "The best source of material for DNA analyses given the time frame," she writes in Beyond The Tape. "Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the laboratory could not get a full profile and the results were described as inconclusive."Yes! [laughs] The kids always give me puzzles for Christmas and my husband is standing there going, “What are you meant to do with this?” [laughs] A decision was made to exhume McInnes's body and take samples for DNA analysis. As forensic pathologist acting for the Crown Office in this instance, Cassidy was at the grave in Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, as the exhumation took place. I couldn’t allow myself to stray into anything else. I had to have tunnel vision for 40 years and just concentrate on what I was doing. I missed a lot in life… Police officers at Stonehouse Cemetery, Lanarkshire, take the exhumed remains of John Irvine McInnes for DNA tests in Glasgow. Picture: Maurice McDonald
Even so, she says, "You have to get used to not being at that birthday party, there will be days you will miss. So the time I did have was theirs," she says, referring to her two children, now grown up and living in London. I was particularly fascinated with Dr Cassidy’s involvement with the UN and the uncovering of mass graves in war-torn countries. She became part of a team involved in assisting with the identification of the dead. A mammoth task with ‘the numbers so overwhelming that we thought we would never be able to identify all the remains recovered’. Dr Cassidy’s portrayal of the scenes she witnessed are incredibly disconcerting, surrounded by a very unpredictable political climate and rudimentary facilities. You have to have a certain personality, a very odd personality,” Cassidy laughs. The 67-year-old, originally from Rutherglen in Glasgow, studied medicine there and expected to “end up as a GP”. But she found she was better with deceased patients than live ones, and soon became fascinated with forensic pathology.
Forensic pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy on her life at the frontline of death
People lied and told me it had improved, it has not improved one bit but hey ho, let's just go with it.” I thought I would miss it dreadfully but, thankfully, I’ve got over it. I’ve got over my obsession with death."
Great Deal 
New Comment