A man in his 50s has been arrested in connection with the investigation into the murder of Kerry farmer Michael (Mike) Gaine last year.<\/p>\n
Mr Gaine was reported missing from his home at Carraig East, around 8m from Kenmare, in Co Kerry, on Friday 21 March 2025.<\/p>\n
Human tissue found on his farm were identified in May that year as his remains.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed said that a man was arrested this morning and is being held at a garda station in Kerry.<\/p>\n
This is the second arrest in the investigation.<\/p>\n
Mr Gaine was last seen on 20 March 2025.<\/p>\n
The 56-year old was well known in farming and motorsport circles.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people joined a search of the rugged, mountainous terrain of his 1,000-acre farm, co-ordinated by garda\u00ed and the Coast Guard.<\/p>\n
The Garda Water Unit also searched a number of lakes, streams and rivers within a 5km radius of Mr Gaine’s home.<\/p>\n
As searches continued for Mr Gaine, friend and neighbour Dan McCarthy said at the time that there was nothing to explain his disappearance.<\/p>\n
“It is absolutely out of character completely that he vanished off the face of the earth, in this rural part of the county and the country,” the local County Councillor said.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed reclassified the case to one of homicide and central to that was the result of their enquiries to establish proof of life.<\/p>\n
On 1 May, garda\u00ed released appeals which they recorded with Mr Gaine’s wife, Janice, and his sister, Noreen O’Regan. <\/p>\n
The strain on both was clearly visible in the videos. <\/p>\n
“We just want Michael to come home,” Janice Gaine said in the video statement. <\/p>\n
“We want to know what happened to him, because if we can’t find Michael I just don’t know what I\u2019m going to do.” <\/p>\n
She said Mike was her “best friend, my husband” and “this whole thing has been devastating”. <\/p>\n
“He loved his home, he loved his farm, he loved animals. <\/p>\n
“He had lots of friends. He was a very popular guy. <\/p>\n
“His disappearance is totally out of character and we knew that from day one.” <\/p>\n
Noreen O’Regan, said the family were “absolutely devastated at what has happened”. <\/p>\n
“Our lives are shattered. We want answers. We love Michael, we want him back.” <\/p>\n
She described Mr Gaine as a “loving husband, brother, uncle”, and said his nieces and nephews loved him. <\/p>\n
“We are devastated and we want him back,” she said. <\/p>\n
Just over a fortnight later, a friend of Mr Gaine, who was tending to his farm, discovered human tissue as he spread slurry in fields close to the farmyard. The fields were sealed off and declared a crime scene, as were the farmyard and the slurry tank there from which the slurry had been drawn. <\/p>\n
Over that weekend, an intensive search took place in the farmyard and in the surrounding fields. More human tissue was found in the slurry tank. <\/p>\n
The material was later confirmed to be the partial remains of Mike Gaine. <\/p>\n
On 25 May, garda\u00ed arrested and questioned former US soldier Mike Kelley on suspicion of Mr Gaine’s murder. He was released without charge just over 24 hours later.<\/p>\n
Mr Kelley, who was working and living on Mr Gaine’s farm when he disappeared, confirmed in a subsequent interview with RT\u00c9 News that he was the man who had been arrested and questioned by garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
Mr Kelley denied any involvement in Mr Gaine’s death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man in his 50s has been arrested in connection with the investigation into the murder of Kerry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-314557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}