Sometimes you come across the interests of others that mirrors your own completely. So it is with this story I did back a few years ago. Glad to see someone has touched on those tragic events of that night. I think you'll find this transcript especially relevant.
[TRANSCRIPT]
Just why was the case closed on the terrible disappearance of a community numbering over 80 people? And why hasn't any evidence surfaced after a decade? Is there a conspiracy of silence? Leitrim Gazette's Dan Cobern investigates.
For almost two decades, Jenna and Albert Cummings have lived with the overwhelming grief of losing their daughter when the community in Kilmatogh vanished in a mysterious fire during the night of August 3rd, 1982.
Dan: Firstly, I'd like to thank you for agreeing to speak with me today on this difficult subject.
Jenna Cummings: You'd have thought after all this time you'd be able to talk about it, as you can tell, it's still very hard.
Dan: Back in 1982, your daughter, Annmarie Cummings, was a lively 22-year-old girl living in rural County Leitrim. She was part of a research community at Kilmatogh working, as I believe, on experiments involved with expanding human awareness.
Jenna Cummings: That's right. We tried to get her a different job, closer to home. We didn't think it was the place for our daughter to be in.
Dan: And why is that?
Jenna Cummings: Listen, there were certain things no one was suppose to know outside the community, not even blood relations.
Dan: Like what?
Jenna Cummings: To begin with, she was seeing Malcolm Cassin.
Dan: Malcolm Cassin the founder who started the community? Some called him a “hippie guru”. But he must've been in his mid-sixties.
Jenna Cummings: Yes!
Dan: And your daughter was having a romantic relationship with him?
Jenna Cummings: If that's what you want to call it, then yes.
Dan: Why was it not supposed to be known outside the community? Why keep it a secret?
Jenna Cummings: Well, everything Cassin did was a secret. On the outside he gathered a few followers to start the community with the aim of performing scientific experiments. But on the inside he wasn't, how should I say it? Not a.... grounded person. His areas of study went beyond anything the rest of his community had any desire to tamper with: the lower planes, the underworld, the demonic realm.
Dan: I'm afraid I'm not following you.
Jenna Cummings: I know very little of this from direct observation; most of it I managed to pick up from our daughter's conversations. So I caution you it's not entirely reliable.
Dan: What did your daughter say about his special 'areas of study'?
Jenna Cummings: She said he made contact with the gods of the underworld. Demons.
Dan: Demons of the mind, or actual hell and brimstone demons?
Jenna Cummings: Look, we didn't bring our daughter up to be a head case, we really didn't. But as far as I'm concerned, her work with Cassin in that hippie commune had caused her to break with reality.
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The Cumming's worst fears were realized when Annmarie and the rest of the Kilmatogh community disappeared in the early hours of Aug. 3rd 1982.
(1982 news report audio snippet)
Reporter: "It was sometime after 2 o'clock Wednesday morning when the community in Kilmatogh went up in a blazing inferno along with all its residents..."
Dan: After hearing about the fire, the Cummings were frantic. Albert Cummings and his wife searched in vain for Annmarie.
Albert Cummings: We just got in my car and drove straight to Leitrim and just started driving all the back roads looking for any sign of Annmarie.
Dan: How were you feeling? Panicked?
Albert Cummings: Yes, Dan! I was scared for my daughter. We thought maybe she was hurt. Maybe she had survived the fire.
Dan: But you didn't find her.
Albert Cummings: No. Nothing.
Dan: Later that same month, the Gardai and local authorities called off the investigation into what happened at Kilmatogh and closed the case without so much as an explanation to the families of the missing community members. How did this make you feel...the authorities closing the case like that?
Albert Cummings: You're just numb.....You just can't believe that something big like that could happen, you know, and then have the case shut down and nobody have any explanation. We didn't even have any remains to put in her coffin at the funeral.
The bizarre mystery surrounding the fire that witnesses believe began under the site of the Xual community stunned the quiet, rural town of Blackross, located just two miles north of the site. After the eyewitness reports of the fire, Gardai launched an intensive investigation of the area, and at one point focused on some promising leads, but to the Cummings's distress nothing was found, or should I say, ever made public.
Albert Cummings: I didn't expect the case to be closed down so soon. I figured they'd have at least told the relatives what they think happened that night.
Dan: You believe there's a conspiracy of silence surrounding the events?
Albert Cummings: Yes. We have always believed someone from the nearby town must have seen something -- or heard -- something that night. Not just the townsfolk, but maybe others too, and they're keeping it a secret. We're convinced someone is holding something back.
Dan: But no one has talked yet?
Albert Cummings: No.
Annmarie and everyone else from the community of Kilmatogh were all but forgotten. How Jenna and Albert Cummings have to live with never fully knowing what happened to their daughter is a heartbreaking thing to see. The lasting impression is that this mystery is still very much relevant today as it was when it first tragically occurred on that faithful night: August 3rd, 1982.
[TRANSCRIPT ENDS HERE]
This story was originally meant to be printed in the Leitrim Gazette, but it got quashed and never saw the light of day.