Andrew Carey
andrew@limerickpost.ie
A CREMATION service has taken place for the serial fraudster found dead in a county Limerick farmhouse last month.
The remains of Cecilia Julia McKitterrick, who was more recently known as Julia Holmes, were removed from the Limerick morgue at the University Hospital Limerick on Friday morning last and taken to the Island Crematorium at Ringaskiddy where a small private service took place.
The body of the 63
-year-old con woman was found lying next to her partner, Thomas Ruttle in the bedroom of the old family farmhouse that had been recently renovated at Booliglass, Askeaton.
It is as of yet unknown how long the badly decomposing bodies lay at the farmhouse before the discovery was made on May 18 last and the results of toxicology tests are expected to take a further ten days.
However it is understood that the pair died following exposure to carbon monoxide poison in what is believed to have been some form of suicide pact at Boolaglass, Askeaton.
McKitterrick, who went by up to 40 other aliases including Julia Holmes, the name she was known locally as, was originally from Castlederg in County Tyrone and had married in her late teens and gave birth to a son before abandoning him at six months.
During her life, Holmes became involved with and devisied scams in both the US and Northern Ireland as well as locally in Limerick in her later life.
She married twice despite having not divorced from her first husband in the North.
Wanted by both the FBI and the PSNI following a number of frauds and convictions, Holmes had also drawn the attention of Gardai in recent months after her activities became known publicly.
Following the discovery of the bodies by burglars who thought the farmhouse had been abandoned in recent months, the remains of both Mr Ruttle and the 63-year-old lay in the morgue as a extensive discussions were held over legal issues and subsequent arrangements for burial.
Any of the families that the Julia Holmes was involved had not come forward to claim her remains despite her request in a written will and testament that she be buried with her partner Thomas Ruttle.
This Wednesday, Thomas Ruttle was laid to rest in the family plot at St Mary’s Church following a service attended by family friends and the late beekeeper’s two sons.
