Gardai were told yesterday of a sighting of Christopher Crowley and his daughter, Deirdre, in a Clonmel hotel 11 days ago.
Mr Eddie Kelly, a shop keeper in the town, said he saw the two in Hearns Hotel nine days before both were found dead at the home Mr Crowley rented on Coleville Road. A security video taken from the hotel by gardai yesterday is understood to have confirmed that the two people Mr Kelly saw were Mr Crowley and his six-year-old daughter.
Mr Kelly said he was having breakfast in the hotel when he noticed the pair sitting at a table in the middle of the room.
"What caught my attention was that they only had one cup of coffee, which he was drinking, and there was nothing else placed on the table. They were talking away," he said.
"He was smiling at her with a very soft smile. I found it extraordinary the way he kept smiling at her. I found it unusual as well that she was not having anything to eat; but then I thought she had probably had breakfast at home and they had just called in because he wanted a coffee."
When he next looked up, the girl had the coffee and drank it down in gulps. She then counted some money from her purse and in response to a question from the man, she shook her head.
"When I saw that, I wondered if they had no money and should I offer to buy them breakfast. It certainly seemed as if she needed that coffee," said Mr Kelly.
"I didn't know if they would be offended; but just when I was going to get up and offer, they got up and left." Mr Crowley walked ahead of his daughter and she did not appear to be in any distress, Mr Kelly said.
But there was "something that wasn't quite right" about the pair, which was why the incident had stuck in his mind.
However, he saw no reason to be alarmed - there was nothing one could pinpoint to suggest there was anything untoward about the relationship.
A man who delivered milk to Mr Crowley at the house on Coleville Road since last November said he had never seen the little girl. Mr Dick Murray, a self-employed agent for the Glanbia Group, delivered milk to Mr Crowley, who used the name Mr Allen, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
A post-mortem on the bodies of Mr Crowley and his daughter was continuing last evening by the State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, at St Joseph's Hospital in Clonmel.
