Fermanagh horror shooting: Father named as prime suspect, as prayer vigil remembers victims
The man injured in the gun deaths of a mother and two children killed in last week’s Fermanagh horror shooting has been named as the father of the family.
Vanessa Whyte and her teenage children, 14-year-old James Rutledge and 13-year-old Sara Rutledge, died last Wednesday morning in a crime that shocked the whole of Northern Ireland.
A man from the same household is currently in Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital, last reported to be a serious condition, after what police theorise may be a triple murder and attempted suicide.
Now Ian Rutledge, Vanessa’s husband and father to James and Sara, has been named as the man injured in the shooting.
The PSNI refused to comment on his identity while Belfast Health Trust, which runs the hospital, said it does not provide updates on anyone’s condition.
However he has been widely named in the media as both the injured man and prime suspect in the case.
His identity became public shortly before a prayer vigil was held to remember the victims.
Ms Whyte, 45, was originally from Co Clare, and hundreds of people attended the vigil in her home village Barefield on Sunday evening.
Parish priest Fr Tom Fitzpatrick said that Ms Whyte was a woman who loved her children “fiercely”, and wanted the best for them.
He described the shooting deaths as “the unspeakable tragedy that has befallen our parish”, adding the events of last Wednesday morning are “very hard to focus in on and get our minds around”.
“But we’re here, and that’s the main thing,” he said. “And we are here as well, not just praying for the three of them tonight in a very special way, and asking the Lord to take them to himself, that they be at peace. And I know they are.”
Three candles representing Ms Whyte, James and Sara sat on the altar.
Those gathered were told that she was a woman who “gave and gave”.
“Vanessa was a mother. She was a daughter, a sister, an auntie and a great friend to so many people,” Fr Fitzpatrick added. “Her life was incredibly precious.
“James and Sara, young lives just beginning, so full of promise, so loved, so full of light, they’ve been taken away from this world all too soon in a violent way.
“We just find it impossible, my dear friends, to make sense of any of it. We cannot rationalise what should never have taken place, what we can do is remember the pain that we feel now, that pain is borne out of love.
“If we didn’t love Vanessa, and so many of you would have known her, and if we didn’t love her children, we wouldn’t be grieving. This heartbreak is the price we pay for love, but it is also love in itself that will help Vanessa’s family and all of us indeed, to carry it over the weeks and months to come.
He said the Whyte family’s hearts have been “fractured beyond belief”.
“You have lost a sister, a niece and a nephew, and there are no words that can fill the space that they have left behind,” he stated. “But you’re not alone. You are held by a community of people who are walking with you through this darkness.”