The American woman had moved to west Cork in 2004 for a study abroad programme. She met and married McCarthy, and they later welcomed their daughter. Saunders has said that at the time she thought she wanted Clarissa to be buried with her father, but she is now appealing to have her remains exhumed to bring her to the US, where she now lives. "I just remember always wanting to be by her side and wanting to crawl into that coffin with her," she told RTÉ's Claire Byrne Show last night. “There will be a small amount of closure that I no longer have to think that she is in the arms of that monster.”